
PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 



A SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY 



PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF ARTS, LITERATURE, AND SCIENCE 

OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO IN CANDIDACY FOR 

THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 



BY 



hannah b; Clark 



CHICAGO 

©tie &ntbet0tt£ of Cfctcaflo $ug0 
1897 



THE 



PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 



A SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY 



PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF ARTS, LITERATURE, AND SCIENCE 

OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO IN CANDIDACY FOR 

THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 



BY 

HANNAH Bf CLARK 



*»»*##««** 



CHICAGO 

€i\t aanibusitg of (Efjtcago Icess 

1897 









TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

Page. 

Preface. --------- 5 



PART I. HISTORY. 

Chapter I. Formal - - - 9 

Period of Ungraded Schools - - 9 

Period of Unification and Grading - - - - 18 

Chapter II. Legal -------36 

Chapter III. Financial ------ 50 

Chapter IV. Pedagogical ------ 65 

PART II. STRUCTURE AND FUNCTIONS OF THE SCHOOL SYSTEM. 

Chapter I. Structure. ------ 85 

Organs - - - - - - - - 85 

Property and Financial Support 88 

Persons -------- 93 

Regulation of the System - - - - - 100 

Associations of Teachers and Pupils - 105 

Chapter II. Functions - - - - - - 108 

Conclusion - - - - - - - - 116 



P. 
Publ. 



PREFACE. 

The data for this study of the Chicago public schools have 
been chiefly derived from the " Proceedings of the Board " and 
the annual reports of the school inspectors and Board of Educa- 
tion. The latter form an unbroken series from 1854 to 1895-6 
Information concerning the earlier period is found in a few 
scattered reports by inspectors, in a history of the schools pub- 
lished in 1857 and afterwards continued and enlarged by the 
clerk of the board, Shepherd Johnson, and in a "Report on 
Common Schools" presented to the council in 1838. 

The state constitutions and statutes and the city charters and 
ordinances of different dates contain the school laws. 

Other material has been taken from the following sources : 
"A Brief History of Education in Illinois," by Samuel Willard 
published in the Illinois School Reports for 1883-4; "Early 
Education in Illinois," by W. L. Pillsbury ; " City School Systems 
of the United States," by John S. Philbrick, published by the 
Bureau of Education as a Circular of Information ; " Education 
in the United States," by Boone ; the Eighth Annual Report of 
the Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics for 1894. 

To these have been added interviews and correspondence 
with the superintendent of schools, former members of the 
board, teachers and business men, and personal observation and 
investigation. 

5 



PART I. 



HISTORY 



CHAPTER I. 

FORMAL. 

PERIOD OF UNGRADED SCHOOLS. 

As colonists carry to a new country the roots and seeds 
of plants which centuries of culture from the wild species have 
made ready for extraordinary development in a fresh soil, so 
they also bear with them the knowledge and need of institutions 
which their fathers have painfully nourished through the slow 
growth of generations, but which, transplanted into new condi- 
tions, are capable of maturing with a hitherto unknown rapidity. 
An exotic institution may indeed, like the human embryo, trav- 
erse in its development the whole life history of its race, yet the 
different stages of growth are then so shortened in time and so 
narrowed in extent to essentials that the substantial identity of 
the two processes is often unrecognized. 

Without venturing to claim that the history of Chicago schools 
is an exact epitome of the history of education in the United 
States, it may still be asserted that it represents the more 
marked stages of that progress, especially in this century. And 
yet at the outset we are met by a difference which requires us 
to confine exact parallelism to the western states. The colonial 
schools were formed upon English models, but the English govern- 
ment did not concern itself about them. For the great territory 
of the Northwest, however, the Federal Congress, and later the 
United States government, made careful provision by securing the 
support for public education. 

Thus long before Illinois possessed either name or autonomy, 
social generalizations reached by experience in New England and 
Europe were imposed upon the region by outside authority, 
The new community found itself the half-involuntary recipient 
of certain social standards and institutions whose need it had 
not yet felt. As far back as 1785 certain sections in the newly 

9 



io THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

surveyed territory north of the Ohio River were designated by 
the government as " school sections" and the famous " Ordi- 
nance of '87" announced the principle under which this action 
was taken : " Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary 
to good government, schools and the means of education shall 
be forever encouraged." Two implications of this formula, 
often referred to as "the American idea," are equally patent: 
that government is an end, citizens the means ; and that religious 
and moral instruction is a necessary part of public education. 
The degree to which these ideas have been modified will be 
noticed as the history of the management of the schools is 
reviewed. 

The action of the government had no real effect until 
twenty-one years later when the Enabling Act for Illinois gave 
the people of the new state an opportunity to sanction it. When 
this was done, at the convention held in Kaskaskia, August 26, 
1 8 18, the foundation was firmly laid for the maintenance of 
public schools throughout the state. 

The first constitution of the state made no mention of edu- 
cation, and it was 1825 when the legislature passed a law "for 
the establishment of free schools," which provided for the 
election of school trustees, the laying off of school districts by 
county commissioners and the levy of a 2 per cent. tax. This 
last clause was so unpopular that it was never enforced and was 
repealed in 1828. 

In his history of "Early Education in Illinois," Mr. W. L. 
Pillsbury calls attention to the fact that this law was notably 
radical. Only the five New England states had similar enact- 
ments, embodying the three features, a school system based 
on law, tuition-free schools, and taxes to supplement school 
funds. Each one of these features was, in the older states, the 
fruit of slow evolution. There the law did not take account of 
schools until they were well established, "free" meant unsec- 
tarian, and the altruistic idea of general school taxes was but 
slowly adopted. Even in Illinois, it must be admitted, the legis- 
lation was so far in advance of public opinion that few schools 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 1 1 

were established for many years. The law remained simply a 
memorial to the advanced, and impracticable, views of the legis- 
lators, until the growth of community spirit made the people 
ready to cooperate. 

Meantime a little settlement on Lake Michigan was laying 
the foundation of a school system quite independently of any 
legal impulsion. The early settlers of Chicago came chiefly 
from the eastern states, bringing with them the customs and 
standards of an older civilization. This led them to desire for 
their children and to reproduce, as far as the conditions of a 
new community permitted, the forms of culture with which they 
had been familiar. 

The date of the first school is the same as the date of the 
first settlement after the Indian massacre, 1816, the year in which 
Fort Dearborn was rebuilt. Seven or eight children were taught 
at that time by a teacher whom Mr. Kinzie, the agent of the fur 
company, employed. The record is incomplete for several years 
after this, but it is certain that the officers of the fort had a 
school for their children in 1820 and that in 1829 the Beaubien 
families were employing a teacher. In 1830 a Mr. Forbes organ- 
ized what was, perhaps, 'the first school not originating with 
the parents of the scholars. It numbered about twenty-five 
children and occupied a building at what is now the corner 
of Michigan avenue and Randolph street. In 1832 Colonel 
R. G. Hamilton, commissioner of school lands, and Colonel 
Owen employed a Mr. Watkins to teach a school on the 
north side of the river. Miss Eliza Chappel opened a school for 
girls the next year in a log house, but proving successful soon 
obtained the use of the first Presbyterian Church building. In 
the same year Mr. Grenville Sproat opened an " English and 
Classical School for Boys" in the Baptist Church, corner of 
South Water and Franklin streets. Other private schools became 
more or less prominent about the same period, but the three last 
mentioned are of interest because they became the first public 
schools. All were of the same type — schools supported by 
small tuition fees subscribed by the parents. 



12 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

The year 1 83 1 was marked by the organization of Cook 
county and the appointment of a commissioner of school lands. 
In 1833 Chicago became a town and, influenced either by the 
spirit of speculation or a more praiseworthy desire to promote 
public welfare, the voters, numbering less than one hundred, 
petitioned forthe sale of the school lands. Since they conformed 
to the provisions of a law passed a few months before to regulate 
the sale of school lands, the commissioner could do nothing but 
carry out their request. All but four blocks of the school 
section was sold at auction for what seemed at the time the 
munificent sum of $38,619.47. With the interest on this it 
became possible for the first time to establish a public school, but 
it was not necessary to organize a new school. Miss Chappel's 
was granted a share of the money in 1834 and thus had the 
honor to be the first free school in Chicago and probably in the 
state. Mr. Sproat's school was adopted later in the same year 
and Mr. Watkins' soon after. The condition on which a school 
became a public school was simply that it keep a certified record 
of attendance in a prescribed way. This entitled it to a share of 
the public fund proportional to the number of its scholars. This 
policy of adopting private schools was more economical for the 
town than it would have been to establish new ones and it involved 
no radical change in the school itself, except a more certain 
financial support. Neither trustees nor commissioner exercised 
any real supervision over the management of the schools. 

School districts were set off in 1835, but they remained for 
some time mere map boundaries, the community not feeling the 
necessity for many schools. 

In February 1835 the legislature passed a special school 
law for Chicago which is of interest because of the modifications 
it presents of the district system so long established in New 
England. The voters of the town were to elect inspectors who 
should examine teachers, select books, and visit schools, but 
each district was to elect trustees who should employ teachers, 
keep the schools free, see that all white children could attend, 
and — most significant of all — levy taxes for all expenses except 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 13 

teachers' salaries, which the voters were to fix and provide for by 
special taxes. In form this was less decentralized than the New 
England system, but the inspectors had little power except as 
advisers, the control of the money and the management of the 
schools being in the hands of the local body. The legislators 
had but partially freed themselves from the crude democracy 
which so narrowed the idea of local self-government that the 
efficiency and economy of centralization when applied to an 
institution of common interest was quite unrecognized. 

The enactment of this particular law was followed so quickly 
by the incorporation of the city that its details were never car- 
ried out, but some features of the district organization were 
included in the new system. Happily, however, the evils of 
divided authority were seen before the system had become dear 
to the people, as it did in New England, so that a change was 
effected with more ease than in the older states. 

The charter of Chicago, granted in 1837, tne >* ear that Hor- 
ace Mann became secretary ;>f the Massachusetts School Board 
and the era of the "New Education" began for the United 
States, gave the city council entire control of the schools with 
the important exception that the school lands and fund remained 
in the hands of the commissioner. The immediate management 
was vested in inspectors appointed by the council, having 
powers similar to those granted under the law of 1835, while the 
district elected trustees to levy taxes, provide buildings, and 
employ teachers. 

At the time of its incorporation Chicago had about 3000 
inhabitants. Five school districts and about 400 scholars appear 
in the enumeration, but in two or three districts there were no 
schools and the attendance of pupils fell considerably below the 
enrollment. It was the year of the great panic following the 
period of speculation, and, although the city continued to grow 
and was in many ways unaffected by financial disturbances, the 
school revenues suffered severely. 

In a letter dated January 17, 1838, one of the private-school 
teachers of the city wrote: "The hard times affect all the 



14 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

schools. The great school fund of $36,000, for which Chicago 
has been so celebrated, is all loaned out and cannot now com- 
mand sufficient interest to support even one district school. All 
have been stopped by order of the trustees, I am informed." 

This closing of schools was probably not so general as is here 
implied, and it was certainly only temporary, yet an official 
review of the situation shows sufficient grounds for discourage- 
ment. A Report on the Common Schools made to the council 
in 1838 by a special committee begins : "It is well known to all 
that, from the period of the first settlement of this place, the 
cause of education has received very little attention. This 
important interest which lies at the foundation of our social and 
political institutions, with the successful advance of which our 
destinies as a community are closely interwoven, has hitherto 
been left, like an exotic, to struggle for a precarious existence 
under the blighting chill of public apathy and neglect." The 
census of 1837, the report says, shows 838 children between the 
ages of five and twenty-one, but not more than 300 to 325 are in 
the schools at any time, nor is the average period of attendance 
more than a quarter of a year. Compulsory education is opposed 
by the prejudice which regards it as an interference with family 
rights and duties, and yet it seems almost a necessity. There 
are many reasons to be given for the non-attendance of the 
children, foremost among; which is the condition of the 
schoolhouses. They are greatly overcrowded and are bare, 
unattractive, as well as poorly lighted and ventilated. The 
schools are very defective in their lack of uniformity in text- 
books and methods of instruction, and all the work is handi- 
capped by lack of money. The committee recommends that a 
general tax be levied, that school buildings be made more health- 
ful and attractive, that vacancies be immediately filled by the 
appointment of new teachers, and, reflecting a feeling common 
in the East, that the two sexes be separated in school. 

It is evident from this report that school taxes were no more 
popular in Chicago than in the rest of the state. The fund 
derived from land sales was the main dependence for the sup- 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 15 

port of the schools, and if it failed the schools were likely to fail 
also. Intense individualism was the ruling philosophy ; common 
interests and common sympathies were but feebly felt. 

The awkwardness of divided financial interests in the manage- 
ment of the schools was soon felt so keenly that, through the 
efforts of Mr. J. Y. Scammon, an amendment to the city char- 
ter was secured in 1839 by which the control of the school lands 
and fund was transferred to the council, a school agent being 
appointed manager. The district control of the collection of 
taxes remained as before. 

The earliest available report of the school inspectors is that 
of 1 84 1. Like most of the subsequent ones it contains a flourish 
of rhetoric to impress the unofficial reader, yet a certain interest 
attaches to this picture of desirable inspectors. "We should 
select good men from all parts of the city, men who shall as far 
as possible represent the various feelings and opinions of our 
diverse population, men who take a deep interest in the subject 
of education and devote a portion of their leisure time to inves- 
tigating the subject. 

It is worth while to note that this ideal was carried out dur- 
ing the early years of the city's history to a much greater degree 
than has been the case in recent years. Prominent citizens were 
willing to serve as inspectors, and many of them gave both time 
and thought to the study of educational problems, with the 
result that they were able wisely to influence school legislation 
for the state at several critical periods. 

The " Regulations for Schools," published in this report of 
1 84 1, contains the first list of authorized text-books, and repre- 
sents the first attempt to unify the schools. The subjects 
included reading, grammar, composition, geography, arithmetic, 
algebra, and history. The Bible was to be read every day 
without comment, the advanced pupils reading each a verse in 
turn. 

The overcrowding of these ungraded schools and the 
presence of pupils old enough to do more advanced work- 
prompted the suggestion, made in this same year, that a high 



1 6 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

school be established. Low as the implied standard of this school 
was, the inspectors had a conception of higher education which 
was by no means common at the time. Boston, Philadelphia, and 
Baltimore were the only cities which had anything higher than 
grammar schools in their public-school systems. The lack of 
means made it impossible for the inspectors to carry out their 
plan, but the suggestion bore fruit in later years. 

Even the opening of a district school was undertaken only 
after petitions from the residents of the locality indicated a 
demand so strong that the collection of the necessary taxes was 
rendered reasonably certain. The buildings used were seldom 
built for that purpose ; rooms of any kind were difficult to secure 
and convenience received little consideration. The only build- 
ing owned by the city up to 1845 was so ^ m tnat y ear f° r $45- 
The first permanent schoolhouse was erected in the same year 
on Madison Street opposite the present site of McVicker's thea- 
ter. It cost $7500, and was popularly known as Miltimore's 
Folly, in derision of the inspector most interested in it. Skeptics 
declared that it could never be filled, and the mayor suggested 
that it might be utilized as a factory or an insane asylum. Two 
districts were at first accommodated in it, but before two years 
had passed one of them was crowded out. The enrollment of 
scholars in the city was at this time about 1300, the teachers 
numbered eighteen. The population of the city had quadrupled 
in ten years, while the school enrollment had increased four and 
one-half times. 

During all the early years the principals of the schools were 
men. Women were only gradually introduced as assistants, and 
the differences in salaries were marked, though all salaries bore 
testimony to the poverty of the board and the low grade of the 
schools. In 1839 m ale teachers received $400 a year; female 
from $200 to $250. In 185 1 an ordinance provided that the 
former should be paid, "according to their success and the num- 
ber of scholars," from $300 to $800 ; the latter were graded in 
three classes. The maximum for the first was $400, for the 
second $200, and primary teachers received $150! At such val- 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO I 7 

uation of their services the standard for teachers could hardly 
have been high, but no complaints are recorded. 

It was in the decade between 1840 and 1850 that a desire for 
mutual helpfulness through association led to general meetings 
of teachers and those interested in education throughout the 
state. In 1844 a school convention was held to elect delegates 
to a convention in Springfield, where plans were formed for 
teachers' institutes. During the next year a state society of 
teachers was formed with Chicago men as leaders. Mr. Wright, 
whose father had built the first building in the city designed for 
a school, drafted a new school law for the state, which was unfor- 
tunately defeated by the opposition of the people in the central 
and southern part of the state. The agitation did, however, lead 
to improvements in the law finally passed which made easier the 
levying and collection of school taxes. In 1846 a state conven- 
tion met in Chicago. All of these gatherings were "campaigns 
of education" for the public, rousing more intelligent interest in 
education, while at the same time they cultivated an esprit de 
corps among teachers that added to the dignity of their profes- 
sion and broadened their views. 

It was probably the influence of these new ideas of organiza- 
tion that led the city council in 1850 to rule that the teachers 
should form an institute under the direction of the inspectors 
for weekly instruction and discussion. It was to serve as a sort 
of contracted normal-school course, to supplement the defective 
preparation of the teachers. It has continued, with many addi- 
tions and changes, down to the present time. 

The population of the city in 1853, when the first period of 
the school history ended, was 59,130; the school enrollment 
3086, with 34 teachers. The schools were ungraded and prac- 
tically independent in methods, despite feeble efforts to pre- 
scribe uniform text - books. The local district organization 
hampered development, small economies prevented large plans. 
The growth of the schools had been one of size only, not of 
organization. But the city was entering upon a new era at this 
time. Business had received a great impetus through the open- 



1 8 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

ing of the Illinois canal and the building of railroads, and as 
the population became more settled a new civic pride was born 
that stimulated the citizens to improve their institutions as well 
as to build factories. The growth of the schools made it evident 
that the old disorder could not continue if progress was desired. 
System must be introduced in some way. 

PERIOD OF UNIFICATION AND GRADING. 

Providence in 1840, Boston a decade later, had been con- 
fronted by this same problem and had each solved it in the same 
way, by the appointment of a superintendent of schools. Fol- 
lowing their example, whether avowedly or not is immaterial, 
the council of Chicago in 1853 created the office of Superintend- 
ent, making it his first duty to introduce order and unity into 
the school organization and methods. The first to fill this posi- 
tion was Mr. John C. Dore, from the Boylston Street Grammar 
School, Boston. His report for 1854 reveals in detail the needs 
of the school system. He found that no classification of pupils 
was attempted and no registration of attendance kept. Many 
scholars attended one department in the morning and another in 
the afternoon. The principals were obliged to spend most of 
their time directing the filing in and out of classes, so that they 
could do little teaching or supervising. To add to the confusion 
there was little or no uniformity in the books used by different 
schools. It was nothing less than a revolution when the super- 
intendent began to examine classes, organize departments, and 
insist on the use of uniform text-books. It was new discipline 
for teachers and pupils, but the reforms seem to have been intro- 
duced with comparative ease, probably because the schools were 
still so young. 

There were in all but seven schools, and these were so over- 
crowded that 1000 applicants had to be refused seats. Two 
years later, when Mr. William H. Wells succeeded Mr. Dore, he 
reported that at least 3000 children were out of school and the 
buildings were very much overcrowded. It was but the begin- 
ning of a difficulty that grew greater with the years. 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO i 9 

One method of obtaining relief, which had been suggested as 
early as 1841, was the formation of a high school. This proposal 
had been repeated at intervals with the additional arguments 
that such a school would stimulate the lower departments and 
serve as a preparatory school both for college and for teaching. 
The plan as at first presented was evidently shaped on New 
England models, a school in two divisions, one for boys and one 
for girls, but the school which was finally opened in 1856, like 
Chicago schools in general, was coeducational. The opening 
of this school with its normal department is significant, not only 
as an advance in organization, but also as illustrating the forced 
growth of transplanted institutions. Boston had a Latin school 
for boys in 1632 and an English high school in 1821, but there 
was no girls' high school till 1826, when the commonwealth was 
nearly 200 years old. Chicago was but twenty years old when 
she took this forward step. Philadelphia's Central High School 
dated only from 1838, New York's from 1849. Normal schools 
were also new even in the East. Horace Mann organized state 
schools, but it was 1848 when Philadelphia opened the first city 
normal school. In these developments, as in others to be noted, 
Chicago felt the spirit of the times as soon as the older commu- 
nities did, and was often better prepared to adopt new ideas and 
methods because its system was still flexible. 

In 1857 the legislature granted to Chicago a new charter 
which contained a most important section on the public schools. 
The district organization was done away with, the division of 
territory being kept only for convenience in assigning pupils to 
a school, and a centralized system substituted by retaining the 
inspectors, increasing their number, and giving them as "the 
Board of Education" new powers. The council elected the 
board and controlled the school property, but school manage- 
ment rested entirely with the board. Subsequent changes in 
organization have only increased the power of the board. 

A new type of school was introduced about this time, a night 
school, designed to help those who were obliged to work during 
the day or who were too old to attend the regular schools. It 



20 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

was a private undertaking, a teacher volunteering his services 
and the board only giving the use of a room, but it proved so 
successful that the board was soon asked to make it part of the 
common-school system. Either through indifference or lack of 
means, it took no action in the matter, however, and it was seven 
years before the school was adopted by the city. 

Meantime the superintendent's reports were emphasizing the 
same point over and over — the overcrowding of the school- 
houses. At its worst the evil was so great that some grammar- 
school teachers had over ioo pupils each and there were primary 
teachers who were confronted by from 200 to 300 in a room. 
The new buildings, erected in haste to meet the extraordinary 
demand, failed to provide heat or air or light in sufficient quan- 
tities for the 1200 scholars who were crowded into them. The 
ensuing discomfort was one cause of the irregular attendance 
against which the superintendent struggled for years. It is 
interesting to find in one of his reports an appeal to parents for 
heartier cooperation in the work the children were doing, for 
more frequent visits to the schoolrooms, and to read the next 
year that there had been 452 such visits. Evidently annual 
reports were not relegated to the wastebasket in those days. 

The opening of the high school having failed to relieve the 
overcrowding, a new means was tried in 1858. The minimum 
school age was raised to six years and by this means and the 
erection of new buildings the average number of pupils per 
teacher was lowered to seventy-seven. 

The subject of physical training was mentioned for the first 
time, as far as records show, in 1859 by Mr. Luther Haven, 
president of the board. He called attention to the "curved 
spines, depressed chests, and worn forms" that were common 
among the scholars, and reminded his colleagues and the public 
that a sound mind requires a sound body. Throughout his 
administration he continued to urge the city to provide ample 
playgrounds and simple gymnastic apparatus for the schools. 
Unfortunately land was considered too valuable even then for 
mere pleasure uses, and free-hand gymnastics were slow in win- 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 21 

ning their way, though attended by little or no expense, such 
as the use of apparatus would have entailed. 

The year 1861 witnessed an important change in the organ- 
ization of the schools — the introduction of a graded system, the 
first in Illinois. The work of both grammar and primary 
schools was divided into five grades. Mr. Wells prepared the 
outline of the course of study, which with explanatory notes 
made a monograph of several pages. Its most distinctive 
feature was the oral lessons on "manners and morals" and nat- 
ural science. The influence of the new education is unmistak- 
able throughout the paper and the work of Pestalozzi is defi- 
nitely cited. It is a fact not without significance that the first 
two superintendents of schools were chosen from New England 
at a time when the spirit of Horace Mann was potent in the 
schools of Massachusetts. Mr. Wells had been connected with 
one of the oldest of the normal schools founded by Mr. Mann. 
The vigor with which Mr. Wells presented his plan and the 
progressive character of his views brought him many disciples 
in other cities and enabled him to leave a mark upon Chicago 
schools deeper than that of any other man in their history. In 
a very true sense it may be said that all later changes have been 
but the evolution of his plan. There has been no revolution. 

Undoubtedly the stormy days of the Civil War affected the 
atmosphere of the schools. The superintendent solemnly warns 
against any display of partisanship by teachers or pupils, while 
he declares that "patriotism and love of country, loyalty to the 
Constitution and government should be thoroughly inculcated." 
And yet the only recorded effect of the war was the financial 
depression which seriously diminished the revenues and so 
retarded the building of needed schoolhouses. 

A curious trace of race prejudice asserted itself during this 
time of intense feeling. It will be remembered that the special 
law of 1835 declared it to be the duty of school trustees to see 
that "all white children could attend school." This may have 
been intended as an invidious distinction, but in practice the 
question of color was never raised until 1863, when the city 



2 2 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

established a separate school for colored children. It was in 
existence but two years and then the feeling which occasioned 
it seems to have died out. 

The third superintendent of schools, Mr. J. L. Packard, was 
appointed in 1864. In the same year the old question of the 
public support of a night school was raised again, and this time 
the result of the discussion was favorable to the school. The 
board paid the salary of the teacher and incorporated the school 
into the public-school system. The next year the council made 
its first appropriation for the school, $5000. Evening high- 
school classes were formed in 1868. This action on the part of 
the board was, like the opening of a high school, dated by the 
general movement in educational circles rather than by the age 
of the city. Cincinnati, St. Louis, and New York opened simi- 
lar schools between 1865 and 1866. Boston delayed even 
longer. 

A much needed addition to the normal department was made 
in 1866 by establishing a practice school. The graduates of 
the department were employed in the city schools, the demand 
always exceeding the supply. 

During the decade between i860 and 1870 the number of 
pupils in the schools increased from 14,149 to 38,939 and the 
teachers from 123 to 557. Year after year the superintendent 
reported unsanitary conditions due to overcrowding and esti- 
mated the number of children out of school at 2000 in 1863, 
5000 in 1864,8000 in 1867, 12000 in 1868. These figures did not 
represent the actual applicants for seats, but rather the children 
of school age who were growing up without school privileges. 
The policy of the board at this time was to build great central 
grammar schools for 1000 pupils and cluster about each of them 
a number of primary schools. The thought that this arrange- 
ment would make it easier to meet the demand for seats effec- 
tually estopped all pedagogical considerations, though the super- 
intendent repeatedly presented them in most forcible terms. 

An incident somewhat curious in retrospect occurred in 
T867; the board petitioned the legislature to locate the poly- 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 23 

technic school of the State Agricultural College in Chicago. The 
request did not meet with a favorable response and then the 
board urged the city to found a technical school in connection 
with the high school. This project also failed, to be revived in 
a new form when the manual training school was established 
almost a generation later. 

Another phase of education was occupying the attention of 
teachers throughout the country at this time — the question of 
discipline. The novel idea that the rod could be dispensed with 
in the schoolroom gave rise to much argument. The president 
of the Chicago School Board discussed it at length in his report 
for 1869 with considerable vehemence, upholding corporal pun- 
ishment by statistics to show that it was self-restrictive, the 
knowledge that it might be used diminishing the occasions for 
it. The next year he tried to support his position by quoting 
authorities in other places, and though he could cite only two 
or three in its favor and Boston, Brooklyn, California, Cam- 
bridge, Providence, and Springfield, Mass., were on the opposite 
side, he would not yield. The superintendent did not refer to 
the matter publicly at that time, but he evidently sided with 
the majority and quietly inculcated the new doctrine, for in 
1873 he was able to report, somewhat triumphantly, that cor- 
poral punishment had been abandoned "by request." The 
board afterwards formally forbade its use. 

The school year was only fairly begun in 1871 when the 
great fire wrought its destructive work. Fifteen schoolhouses, 
one-quarter of the whole number, ten of them owned by the city, 
were destroyed and 135 teachers thrown out of work. The most 
irreparable loss, however, was in the board offices where the 
school library, city and state reports, and MS. records of the 
board from its origin were burned. The direct pecuniary loss 
was estimated at $249,780. 

On the terrible Monday after the fire schoolhouses were 
thrown open to homeless people and many found shelter in 
them. Two weeks later the board had obtained new quarters, 
formed plans for the future, reopened the schools and com- 



24 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

menced the work of restoration. The teachers from the burned 
schools were divided into four classes in the order in which they 
would receive positions again — those who were homeless, those 
with dependent relatives, those wholly dependent upon their 
own efforts, and those who had friends able to help them. With 
all the efforts that could be put forth it was three years before 
the lost buildings could be replaced, and the losses on school- 
fund property were felt for many years. 

The decade between 1870 and 1880 witnessed several changes 
in the structure of the school system. The normal department 
of the high school was made an independent school in 1 871, but 
after a brief four years it was given up altogether for the some- 
what superficial reason that positions could not be found for all 
its graduates. 

In 1870 a private class for the education of deaf mutes was 
formed in a room given by the board. In 1875 the board in 
response to requests assumed control of the school, and in 1879 
the legislature made an appropriation of $15,000, which enabled 
the school to enlarge its work. 

The evening schools, suspended after the fire, were soon 
resumed; the grammar schools in 1873, the high-school classes 
in 1874. Since then they have been discontinued only one year, 
in 1877, when there was no money for their support. 

Other changes were the reduction of the number of grades 
in the elementary schools to eight, and the opening of "division 
high schools " with a two years' course for those who did not wish 
the four years' course. These grew in six years into regular high 
schools, located in the different divisions of the city. A change 
of superintendents was made in this period, Mr. Packard being 
succeeded by Mr. Duane Doty, and an assistant superintendent 
was found to be necessary on account of the increasing number 
of schools. 

It was during this period that for the first time the board was 
visibly swayed by public opinion. Whether the discussion began 
in the board or among its constituency cannot be determined, 
but unquestionably it was the influence of foreign citizens, partic- 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 25 

ularly the Irish and German Catholics, that led to the move- 
ment to do away with reading of the Bible in the schools. The 
president of the board in 1869, himself a foreigner, recom- 
mended that the Bible be dropped from the list of books read 
in school on the ground that the schools ought to be non-secta- 
rian. Much pressure on both sides was brought to bear upon the 
board as soon as the proposed action became generally known. 
Petitions from individuals and societies, newspaper discussions 
and public speeches were many and feeling ran high, as it did in 
other parts of the country where the same question was being 
debated. It is difficult to tell from the records the position 
taken by different members of the board, but in 1874 a vote was 
secured by which Scripture reading was given up. A subsequent 
effort to have the action reconsidered was defeated by a vote of 
three to ten, two members of the board being absent. The result 
here, as in other cities where the same struggle went on, was gen- 
erally considered a victory for the Catholics. 

A reorganization of the board by act of the legislature took 
place in 1872. It was now to be appointed by the mayor with 
the consent of the council, and it had power to build, buy sites, 
make loans, etc., with the consent of the council, thus gaining 
greater responsibility and power. But added powers did not 
overcome the difficulties in meeting the demands of the growing 
population. The average enrollment was about 50,000, but the 
report for 1875 said that the board was farther behind the demand 
in providing seats than at any time for twelve years. Ten thou- 
sand scholars were in double divisions, i. e., having but half-day 
sessions. Many of the old buildings were in poor condition and 
the delay of the council in acting upon recommendations for 
building sites caused a vexatious loss of time in providing new 
schoolhouses. The friction between the board and the council 
led the former to make heated accusations against the latter, 
especially the members of the School Committee. They were 
charged with acting in collusion with property owners to prevent 
the board from acquiring needed sites, and, at the best, with fail- 
ure to appreciate and care for the needs of the people. The 



26 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

board tried at different times to secure a law giving it power to 
condemn property for school uses, urging that it was always at a 
disadvantage when it tried to buy land because of the general 
disposition to gain at the expense of the city, but the legislature 
took no action upon the matter. 

In its extremity the board was forced to use most unsuitable 
rented rooms, even basements in some instances, and even with 
these added accommodations it was acknowledged that the 
attempt to provide educational privileges for all the children of 
the city was a hopeless failure. In 1878 it was estimated that 
33,000 children were out of school. In 1879 only 37.7 per cent, 
of the school population could be accommodated. Those in 
half-day divisions numbered, in 1880, 6668; in 1881, 9244; in 
1882, 12,919; in 1884, 11,336, and in 1885, when the situation 
was considered better than usual, 6202. 

The sanitary condition of even buildings erected by the board 
was repeatedly criticised, and a committee on sanitation was 
finally found necessary. After 1881 a better system of lighting 
and ventilating was introduced in new buildings, and some minor 
reforms were attempted in the old ones. Stoves were still in use 
and steam was a novelty whose practicability was much debated. 
According to the records, before 1 876 the lighting space of school- 
rooms equaled only from 7.95 to 9.96 per cent, of the floor space, 
while the improved new buildings showed a percentage of only 
13.13. Comparing this with the present standard, 25 per cent., 
the progress appears slight. One does not wonder that eyes 
suffered from these conditions. A careful examination of the 
eyes of children in a grammar school and the neighboring high 
school, made voluntarily by a physician at this time, showed a 
steady increase in myopia from the lower to the higher grades. 

An imperceptible change which had been going on for nearly 
a quarter of a century was brought to notice by the tribute paid 
to women teachers by Mr. George Howland, the superintendent 
who succeeded Mr. Doty in 1881. The majority of the teaching 
force had come to be women. As has been noted, the schools 
were at first almost wholly in charge of men, but as the number 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 27 

of scholars increased women were selected as assistants, then as 
principals of primary departments, and finally they were given 
the charge of nearly all the grammar schools. In the high schools 
all the principals were men, the assistants' positions were divided 
almost equally between the two sexes. In this unconscious 
movement Chicago had the same experience as the country at 
large, of which it was said early in the sixties : "The majority of 
the teachers in the United States are women." Now and again 
a protest was made against the growing disproportion between 
men and women, and the president of the board several times 
urged the appointment of men as vice principals to have charge 
of the older boys, but the economic and social forces directing 
the movement were too powerful to be resisted by any such feeble, 
individual efforts. 

One of the most vital ideas in the minds of American edu- 
cators during the years that followed the Paris Exposition of 
1867 was that of manual training. The display of technical work 
which the European schools made at that time opened the eyes 
of teachers to new possibilities in the education of the nation's 
children. The first experiment in introducing manual training 
into grammar schools seems to have been that tried in Gloucester, 
Mass., in 1878. Boston followed in 1882, and Peru and Moline, 
111., and New Haven, a little later. Chicago made a preliminary 
venture in 1876 by opening three ungraded rooms, for truants, 
in which sloyd was taught, but as late as 1885 when the Chicago 
Woman's Club presented an earnest request that the work might 
be extended, the board was unprepared to go further. The pres- 
ident was not in favor of such instruction in grammar schools, 
and the superintendent had little or no power. In 1886, however, 
a years' course in woodworking and the use of tools was given 
at the North Division High School. The course was lengthened 
to two years in 1887, and in 1890 the separate English High and 
Manual Training School was organized with a three years' course. 
Similar schools had been opened in Baltimore in 1883 and St. 
Louis in 1884. 

Work in the manual training was commenced in the gram- 



28 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

mar schools in 1891 through the generosity of Mr. Crane who 
fitted up a room and supplied a teacher for the Tilden School. 
This became the center for classes of boys from the eighth 
grades of neighboring schools. The next year the Chicago 
Herald fitted up a room in the Jones School as a similar center. 
The board assisted in the work, after some delay, and has now 
established ten other centers, but it is noteworthy that the initi- 
ative came from outside individuals. 

The kindergartens had a like history. Private kindergartens 
were firmly established when in 1888 the Froebel Association 
asked for the use of a room in one of the public schools. This 
granted, others were desired by both the Froebel and the Free 
Kindergarten associations, until in 1892 the board was requested 
to take charge of ten schools which had been thus quietly organ- 
ized. The kindergartens were adopted into the common-school 
system, and the board found means to extend the work, once it 
was undertaken. 

Other examples of the gradual way in which innovations 
have been introduced are not wanting. Among them are, the 
holding of exercises appropriate for Decoration Day, a custom 
begun in 1887 at the request of the ladies of the G. A. R., the 
closing of schools on Labor Day, in response to the desire of the 
Trade and Labor Assembly ; and the celebration of Washing- 
ton's Birthday under the auspices of the Union League Club. 
Outside suggestions have often proved necessary to move the 
board out of its routine course. So it was in 1888 when "The 
Patriotic Order of the Sons of America" asked permission to 
present the principal schools with the national flag. The peti- 
tion seemed to arouse patriotic feeling so that the board decided 
to provide every schoolhouse with a flag and flagstaff. 

Suggestions have not, however, always been acted on so 
speedily. In 1888 the board was requested to furnish teachers 
for a school at the Waifs' Mission and for one at the Bridewell, 
but it was three years before the first request was granted and 
the latter waited action for six years. These are the only insti- 
tution schools which the city supports. 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 2 9 

In addition to these formal contacts of the public with school 
managers there have been other less significant relations of a 
more or less permanent character established between individ- 
uals or companies and the school children. Thus for a number of 
years the Chicago Daily News has offered prizes for the best Christ- 
mas stories written by the children, and in 1894-5 the Chicago 
Tribune rewarded those who sent in the best reports of news. 
The former offer has affected the routine of the schools, inas- 
much as the stories have been made part of the regular work in 
composition. During the decade between 1850 to i860 a num- 
ber of gifts was made to particular schools or grades in the 
shape of funds to be used to supply poor children with text- 
books or as rewards. A few similar gifts have been received in 
more recent years. The two most important annual awards are 
of the Victor Lawson medal, given for the best essay on Ameri- 
can patriotism, and of the Foster medal, given for scholarship 
and deportment. The latter has been given since 1867. 

In 1 88 7 the legislature passed a compulsory-education law which 
served as a pioneer measure, though comparatively ineffective. 
The Chicago School Board appointed a committee in 1888 to 
draft a new bill that could be substituted for the first with some 
hope of fulfilling its purpose. When the bill was drawn up, a 
public meeting was held to discuss its measures and considerable 
general interest was aroused. The Woman's Club and the Trade 
and Labor Assembly were especially active in furthering the bill. 
Unfortunately the Chicago suggestions were not accepted by the 
legislature, yet the law passed in 1889 was superior to the old 
one and truant officers appointed according to its provisions 
were able to draw some vagrant children into the schools by 
persuasion. Poverty was found to be one cause of truancy and 
the Truant Aid Committee, later organized as the School Chil- 
dren's Aid Committee, of the Woman's Club was formed to 
assist in clothing children. Another compulsory-education law 
was passed in 1893 whose defects in regard to affixing penalties 
and obtaining convictions of violation are so patent that the board 
has never been willing to prosecute under it, and truant officers 



3° THE TUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

can still do little but investigate and report cases of nonattend- 
ance. 

The year 1889 brought a number of changes, prominent 
among which was an innovation upon the previous tacit policy 
of the mayor, the appointment of a woman upon the board. 
This action was secured, we are told by an ex-member of the 
board, "by circulating petitions among the business men, getting 
committees of men and women to interview the mayor and by 
using all the personal influence possible. This was done for 
two or three years before anyone was appointed. The first 
appointment was made of Mrs. Ellen Mitchell, who was nomi- 
nated by the [Woman's] club." Later appointments have been 
secured in much the same way, save that political feeling has 
been more active than at first and politicians have exerted a 
stronger influence to secure certain nominations in order, as a 
member of the board once said, "to exchange the courtesy of 
votes." 

The same year was remarkable for the great increase in the 
number of schools and scholars brought about by the annexa- 
tion of the town of Hyde Park and adjacent towns. The city 
had enlarged its boundaries in a similar way many times before 
this, but never to such an extent. The annexed territory 
included thirty-three school districts with portions of eighteen 
others, over 30,000 pupils and 700 teachers. This meant for the 
board not only added burdens in the way of assumed indebted- 
ness, but also increased responsibilities of management. The 
force of assistant superintendents was necessarily enlarged and 
a new division of territory made between them, while the read- 
justment of courses demanded time as well as careful considera- 
tion. 

The appointment of Mr. Albert G. Lane, former county 
superintendent of schools, to the position left vacant by the 
death of Mr. Howland, marked the year 1890. His reports 
voice anew the old cry of overcrowding. In 1891 there were 
l S>773 m half-day divisions; in 1892, 14,375; m : 893, 14,086. 
In 1895-6 were 13,507 in rented rooms, that is in rooms not 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 3 1 

built for schools and too often in an unsanitary condition. At 
least twenty new buildings a year would have been necessary to 
meet the demand, against eleven or twelve that were built. 

For nearly twenty years after the normal school was closed 
Chicago made no effort to give those who intended to teach a 
special preparation. Again and again superintendents urged the 
need of such preparation and deprecated the fact that they 
were forced to take young girls directly from the high schools. 
The "cadet system" was developed after a time by which the 
new teachers were given a kind of probation as assistants and 
substitutes before they obtained permanent positions, but this 
could not be considered satisfactory training. Finally the 
insistence with which the point was pressed led to the organiza- 
tion of a training class for cadets, an afternoon class with a six 
months' course. Very soon after its opening, in May 1892, it 
was seen that a course of at least a year was imperative, yet 
even in its incomplete form the benefit of the class has been a 
positive one. The necessity for its continuance has however 
ceased because of a new addition to the schools. In the winter 
of 1895-6 the Cook County Commissioners offered to turn over 
to the city the Cook County Normal School with all its property, 
if the board would assume its management and support. The 
question of the expediency of accepting this offer was can- 
vassed with care by the board, and unofficially by the press, and 
after considerable delay the school became part of the city sys- 
tem, the beginning it may be of a new era for the teaching force 
of Chicago. 

The year 1893 was rendered memorable by the so-called 
"war on fads," or special studies, which was waged in and out 
of the board. The campaign was formally opened in January 
by a motion to discontinue clay modeling. This was followed 
by more sweeping proposals until it seemed as if drawing, music, 
physical culture, and German would all be removed from the 
curriculum. Much feeling was evoked by the discussion. The 
general public was roused to more active thought on the subject 
than it had ever given to any question concerning the schools. 



32 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

Letters and editorials in the daily papers, resolutions by societies, 
petitions from prominent individuals and organizations, and even 
public meetings were the means employed to persuade the 
board to one decision or the other. An interesting feature of 
the "war" was the warm interest shown by members of the 
Trade and Labor Assembly, who were keenly alive to the needs 
of their children and anxious that their rights should be as care- 
fully conserved as those of the rich. For five months the fight 
went on, now centering about the argument that elementary 
instruction should be provided for the many rather than extra 
studies for the few, and now debating with more or less intelli- 
gence the pedagogical problems involved. The decision finally 
reached was a compromise. The significance of the contest to 
be noted here is the awakening of public consciousness which it 
occasioned ; the effect upon the school curriculum will be con- 
sidered in another connection. The discussion certainly served 
not only as a means of discovering public opinion about the 
conduct of the schools, but also as an education for that portion 
of the public which had previously had no opinion. 

A somewhat similar awakening of thought was threatened in 
1894-5, when a few men ventured to criticise the board for the 
terms on which the leases of school-fund property had been 
granted, but the newspapers so generally refused to publish any 
communications upon the subject — several of them were lease 
holders — that the dissatisfied could not secure the ear of the 
public and the faint interest died out. 

More widespread attention was shown in 1895-6 to the pro- 
posal of the board to reduce the salaries of all special teachers 
and of those receiving over $1200 a year, and to so change 
the classification of all teachers that promotion with increased 
salarv would be very difficult to obtain. The cut was not only 
a serious one in itself, but it was to be made in the middle of the 
year in violation of the implicit contracts under which the 
teachers supposed themselves to be working. The special 
teachers and those of the high schools, who were most affected 
by this ruling, organized to oppose this action by petitions and 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 33 

arguments and personal appeals to members of the board. 
Prominent citizens and clubs assisted them by petitions and 
published letters, the press supported them, and the board at 
length found itself forced to reconsider its action. As in former 
instances, after the period of unusual activity the public resumed 
its unconscious condition, leaving it to individuals to again 
arouse it. 

In reviewing the history of Chicago schools two features 
stand out as most distinctive, the impersonal and the uncon- 
scious character of the development. With the exception of 
one or two of the early citizens who secured some advantage for 
the schools, such as the passage of a desired law, Mr. Wells' 
name is the only one that can be written large in the record. 
Individual influence has been merged in the stream of associated 
forces, individual responsibility has been so little recognized 
that it is lost sight of in the combined action of the council and 
the board. 

The other element of unconsciousness is even more marked. 
In Ward's phraseology, the progress of the schools has been 
natural rather than artificial or rationally directed. At no time 
has a far-reaching policy been annunciated for future action. 
Circumstances have made the board opportunists. The extraor- 
dinary increase in the number of pupils has given the question 
of accommodations such prominence that the need of immediate 
decision has prevented the exercise of reasoned foresight. 
Increased complexity of structure has come through sheer pres- 
sure of circumstances making progress inevitable, or more often 
through private initiative. Thus the high schools and the train- 
ing class owe their existence to the increase of scholars and the 
necessity of having better prepared teachers, while night 
schools, deaf-mute schools, kindergartens, and manual training 
were all started as private enterprises. Unconsciousness has 
also been shown in regard to movements started by the board 
and then forgotten so far as their significance was concerned. 
Each of the special studies was introduced by the board and 
money was constantly appropriated for their maintenance, but 



34 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHLCAGO 



there was for years no recognition of their growing importance 
and of their relation to other studies in the course. 

Two other particulars regarding the schools have already 
been referred to, their rapid growth in size, keeping pace with 
the city's remarkable increase in population, and like the latter 
due to additions both from within and without, and the growth 
in structure that has placed them in sixty years where the 
schools of eastern cities stand after two hundred years. The 
statistics of the former growth are given in the accompanying 
table and the changes in structure are presented in graphic 
form. 



TABLE I. 
SHOWING THE NUMERICAL GROWTH OF THE SCHOOLS. 



Date 


Population 


Population of 
School Age 


Enrollment 


Average Daily 
Attendance 


Teachers 


Total Cost 


1837 


4,170 


838 


300-325 








1840 


4,479 


2,109 


317 








1845 


12,088 




1,051 




9 


#3,413-45 


1850 


29,963 




1,919 


1,224 


21 


6,037.97 


1855 


80,000 


3L235 


6,826 




42 


16,546.13 


i860 


109,206 


52,861 


14,199 




123 


69,630.53 


1865 


178,492 


82,996 


29,080 




240 


176,003.12 


1870 


306,605 


136,333 


38,939 




557 


527,741.60 


1875 


395,4o8 


174,549 


49,121 


34,983 


696 


662,093.47 


1880 


503,298 


1 1 37,035 


59,562 


45,075 


895 


691,536.07 


1885 


629,985 


169,384 


79,276 




1296 


1,884,570.58 


1890 


*i, 205, 669 


289,433 


*i35,54i 




*300i 


3,583,481.93 


1895 


1,568,727 


403,066 


201,380 


154,216 


4326 


6,334,328.10 


1896 


1,619,226 


448,597 


213,825 


165,569 


4668 


7,328,531.68 



* After annexation. 

j" Minimum age changed to 6. 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 



35 



STRUCTURAL GROWTH OF THE CHICAGO SCHOOL SYSTEM. 





1896 


Cook County Normal School. 




1894 


Bridewell School. 




1892 


Kindergartens. Training class. 
( Waifs' Mission School. 




1891 


« Manual training in grammar 
/ schools. 


Superintendent, Mr. Lane. 


1890 


English High and Manual 
Training School. 




1886 


Manual training in high school. 


Superintendent, Mr. Howland. 


1881 




Superintendent, Mr. Doty. 


1877 


\ Deaf-mute schools. 


Regrading. Eight grades. 


1S75 


) Division high schools (1881). 


School Board reorganized. 


1872 






1871 


Normal School independent 
(1876). 




1868 


Evening high-school classes. 




1866 


Practice school. 


Superintendent, Mr. Packard. 


1864 


Night school. 




1863 


School for colored children (to 
1865). 


Graded system introduced. Ten 


1861 




grades. 






District system abolished. 


1857 




Superintendent, Mr. Wells. 


1856 


High School and Normal De- 
partment. 


Superintendent of Schools, Mr. 


1854 




Dore. 






Incorporation of the City. Dis- 


1837 


First public school. 


trict system in part. 








1834 ^ 
1816 \ 


Private schools. 



CHAPTER II. 
LEGAL. 

School law, whether of the nation, state or city, has per- 
formed two functions for the Chicago public schools ; that of 
suggesting or modifying the scheme of organization and support, 
and that of sanctioning action already taken. In the history of 
these laws one may read the outline history of the schools them- 
selves, though a parallel column of events should accompany 
it to mark off the proposed from the realized. It is more worthy 
of attention as revealing the ebb and flow of legislative thought 
and the gradual way in which administrative means have been 
fitted to slowly perceived ends. 

Two preliminary regulations affecting the school lands of the 
Northwest Territory, those of 1785 and 1787, have already been 
quoted in the general account of the schools. The government 
of the United States made the same provisions for education and 
stated its provisions in the " Enabling Act for Illinois," dated 
April 18, 1 8 1 8. This reads, in part, as follows : "Section 6. And 
be it further enacted, that the following propositions be and the 
same are hereby offered to the convention of the said Territory 
of Illinois when formed, for their free acceptance or rejection, 
which if accepted by the convention shall be obligatory upon 
the United States and the said state: First, that section num- 
bered sixteen, in every township, and when such section has 
been sold or otherwise disposed of, other lands equivalent 
thereto and as contiguous as may be, shall be granted to the 
state for the use of the inhabitants of such township, for the use 

of schools Third, that 5 per cent, of the net proceeds 

of lands lying within said state and which shall be sold by Con- 
gress from and after the first day of January, eighteen hundred 
and nineteen, after deducting the expenses incident to the same, 

36 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHLCAGO 37 

shall be reserved for the purposes following, viz.: two-fifths to be 
disbursed under the direction of Congress in making roads lead- 
ing to the state, the residue to be appropriated by the legisla- 
ture for the encouragement of learning, of which one-sixth part 
shall be exclusively bestowed on a college or university." These 
propositions were accepted by the convention at Kaskaskia, 
August 26, 1 8 18. 

No positive action was taken by the legislature until 1825 
when the first school law was passed, entitled "An Act for the 
establishment of free schools." Its provisions may be referred 
to again for the sake of putting them in their right relation to 
other laws. County commissioners were authorized to lay off 
school districts, while the electors chose trustees upon whose 
order the district treasurer was to disburse school funds. The 
peculiar feature of the law was the 2 per cent, tax which it 
authorized as a means of supplementing the school funds. This 
clause was amended in 1827 by making the levying of the tax 
voluntary, and in 1828 it was repealed. 

During the latter year the conditions under which school 
lands might be sold, by a petition from the voters of the town- 
ship, were defined by law. 

A further differentiation of officials was affected by a law of 
1833 according to which trustees were required to pay over 
their funds to school commissioners, appointed by the county 
commissioners, who should apportion the funds according to the 
number of children in the districts. 

These laws had all applied to Chicago as to other towns, but 
its superior size soon made it the subject of special legislation. 
February 6, 1835, a ^ aw was passed for "Township 39, Range 14, 
East, principal meridian," i. e., Chicago. Legal voters were 
required to elect annually on the first Monday in June five or 
seven inspectors to examine teachers, select books, visit schools 
and recommend school sites. Each district was to elect three 
trustees who should employ teachers, keep the schools free and 
see that all white children could attend them, and manage the 
finances of the district, levying taxes for all expenses except 



38 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

teachers' salaries, if the tax were never more than one-half of 
I per cent, on taxable property. The electors elected the 
teachers, fixed their salaries, and if necessary levied special 
taxes to pay them. Thus representative officials were checked 
one by another and all by the voters, according to an ingenious 
but clumsy modification of the New England district system. 

Before the details of this act could be carried out the city 
was incorporated and with the charter a new governmental 
arrangement was introduced. By this the general control of the 
schools was placed in the hands of the council who appointed 
inspectors. The district elected trustees whose duties like those 
of the inspectors were similar to those assigned them under the 
law of 1835, an d the commissioner continued until 1839 to have 
charge of the school fund. In the latter year an amendment to 
the charter was secured, giving the school property over to the 
council. 

In 1845 tn e legislature again attempted to cope with the 
difficulties in the way of taxation which had defeated earlier 
efforts to obtain money. The levy of a school tax was now 
made to depend upon a two-thirds vote of the taxpayers. It 
was a politic appeal to the sentiment favoring self-government, 
but even this failed to arouse disinterested public spirit. The 
state revenue remained a name. 

Chicago was again the subject of a special act in 1851 
(February 14), which relieved the council by placing the busi- 
ness connected with the care of school lands in charge of a 
school agent appointed and directed by the council. The 
duties of inspectors and trustees remained much the same, 
except that the former were given authority to hire as well as 
examine teachers, a slight advance in centralization. 

The council itself took important action as a law-making 
body when, two years later, it passed an ordinance creating the 
office of superintendent of schools. Again in 1856, acting 
under the general school law of the state it authorized by an 
ordinance the establishment of a high school. 

Ten years had now passed since the general school law of the 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 39 

state was enacted. The state had grown rapidly in population 
and more complex conditions resulted in new needs. These in 
turn demanded a new formulation of methods and added agents. 
By the "Act to establish and maintain a system of free schools," 
dated February 15, 1855, the office of state superintendent was 
created, the school age defined as from five to twenty-one, and 
the minimum school term made six months. In the schools 
"the various branches of an English education" were to be 
taught and foreign languages might be added. The salaries of 
teachers were to be paid out of the state tax fund or by special 
township taxes. The state rate was two mills on a dollar. 
Two-thirds of the tax was to be divided among the counties in 
proportion to the number of white children, the rest was to 
go to the townships. "Persons of color" were to receive 
school money in proportion to the amount of taxes they paid. 
This latter provision was one of which Chicago did not avail 
herself. 

An important change in the city system was introduced by 
the amended charter of February 16, 1857. The district sys- 
tem was entirely abolished and for it was substituted a central- 
ized system. The inspectors increased to fifteen became the 
"Board of Education." The council retained entire contrDl of 
the financial interests of the schools, but the board was respon- 
sible for the general management. During the next year the 
council also delegated to the board the power of forming school 
districts, no longer political divisions, and of choosing building 
sites, thus increasing its freedom of action to a considerable 
degree. 

The revised charter of February 13, 1863, contained still more 
detailed sections regarding the common schools. The mem- 
bers of the board received no salary. Teachers, agents, and 
employes of the board were forbidden to have any pecuniary 
interest in any article purchased or work done for the schools, 
or in any contract or loan or other profits from the fund. 
Likewise members of the board and the superintendent were for- 
bidden to be interested in the sale of books or to receive a 



4° THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

reward from any book concern on penalty of loss of office. The 
powers of the council in respect to the school lands and the 
school funds were recapitulated with some added details: (i) It 
could sell and lease property, adding to the fund ; (2) The prin- 
cipal of the fund must never be impaired; (3) The council could 
erect, hire, or purchase schoolhouses, buy or lease sites, furnish 
schools and maintain them, supplying the lacking funds by tax- 
ation. The school agent had the custody and management of 
the school fund under the direction of the council. He was to 
be paid out of the fund and make quarterly reports to the council. 
The fund was to be loaned at 12 percent, interest, payable one 
half year in advance, with security of real estate of double value. 
No loan could be made for more than ten years. The council 
could reduce the interest by a two-thirds vote and could invest 
the fund in city bonds. All securities and notes were to be in 
the name of the city. Debts due to the school fund were prefer- 
able to all but funeral expenses. In default of interest 15 per 
cent, was to be charged from the time of default. Judgments 
paid 12 per cent. Insecure debtors must be warned to give 
further security or have a suit for judgment. The school-tax 
fund was to be paid over to the city treasurer, kept for building 
schoolhouses and maintaining schools, and drawn upon only for 
bills approved by the board on the warrant of the comptroller, 
signed by the president and the mayor. 

It is evident from this act that financial questions were 
becoming more engrossing. Larger sums of money were 
involved, and, as we know from the current history, the effect 
of the war was to seriously cripple the school resources. Not 
even war-time rates of interest could supply all deficiencies. 

An act passed February 16, 1865, required that the school 
agent report monthly to the board in regard to the school fund. 
His appointment now came from the board, with the consent of 
the council. He gave bonds, however, to the latter body and 
continued to defer to it. The board was instructed to provide 
at least one school in each district, free to those between six and 
twenty-one years of age. By this act the school fund came indi- 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 41 

rectly into the hands of the board, though its power was still 
very limited. 

Two years later, March 9, 1867, another school law was 
passed for Chicago which dealt with a variety of subjects. The 
board was given the power to confer collegiate degrees, a still 
unexercised privilege. The council was authorized to establish 
evening schools and make a special appropriation for them, 
actions which it had taken four years before without other sanc- 
tion than the general school law. The council was also author- 
ized to levy a school tax, including the sinking fund, not exceeding 
five mills on the dollar of all real and personal property in the 
city, and to issue bonds, through the comptroller, to be paid the 
next year in case of a deficit during any one year. A more 
novel subject than finances was also approached in this act in 
giving the council power to insist that schools be provided with 
safe and speedy egress. It is the first hint of a sanitary regula- 
tion and it remained a mere form for seven years. 

A more positive step in this direction was taken by the coun- 
cil in 1867, when it passed an ordinance requiring that school 
children be vaccinated. 

Other important measures, headed "ordinance 1866 amended 
act of March 9, 1867," pertained first to the length of the school 
terms, fixing the openings on the first Monday of September, 
January second, and the Monday after the first Friday in May. 
The full control of the high school was given to the board, with 
the condition that it should be free to all of school age and have 
a four years' course. Pupils must be thirteen years of age ; for 
the normal department sixteen, and have passed an examination. 
A normal department for the training of teachers, with a two 
years' course, was sanctioned. Its graduates were to be given the 
preference as teachers. This was the legislative recognition 
given to a school that had been established since 1856! One 
curious clause in the ordinance directs that the labor for clean- 
ing schoolhouses be supplied from the House of Correction when- 
ever possible ; a possible explanation of the frequent complaints 
made about the sanitary condition of the buildings at that time. 



42 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

Between 1867 and 1870 the permission accorded the council 
in 1866 to issue bonds was several times taken advantage of, and 
numerous acts and ordinances, covering temporary difficulties, 
were enacted and became part of the financial history of the 
schools. I 

The year 1870 was marked for the state by the adoption of 
a new constitution, which contains a chapter on education. 
Articles VIII and IX of this are of general application. Section 
1 declares that the general assembly shall provide a thorough 
and efficient system of free school whereby all the children of 
the state may receive a good common-school education. 

Section 2. All lands, moneys, etc., received for school pur- 
poses shall be faithfully applied. 

Section 3. No grants of public money shall be made to any 
public body for sectarian institutions. 

Section 4. No teacher or school officer shall be interested in 
the sale or profits of school books or furniture. 

Article IX Section 12. The school debt cannot 

exceed 3 per cent, on all the taxable property. 

The principle formulated in the ordinance of 1787 had 
attained remarkable definiteness before it was again incorpo- 
rated in an organic law. Instead of the abstract, " Education 
shall be forever encouraged," it has become a demand that "all 
the children of the state " be educated. The constitution also 
reveals something of the religious differences that had been at 
work when it opposes sectarianism with its suggestion of prose- 
lytism, and there is a hint of unwritten history behind the formal 
prohibition of collusion between school officials and interested 
business firms. 

During this same year the council provided for the appoint- 
ment of appraisers for the school property. They were to hold 
a public meeting, of which at least one week's notice had been 
given, and make a detailed report to the council through the 
clerk. No one interested in the lease of school or city property 
could serve as appraiser. 

Under the new constitution a school law was passed April 1, 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 43 

1872, which reorganized the board and carefully defined its 
powers. In cities with a population over 100,000, the law says, the 
board shall have power, with the consent of the council, to build 
and buy buildings and sites and to issue bonds for furnishing, 
repairing, and building schoolhouses, and buying sites. The 
board shall also have power to furnish and maintain schools, 
supplying any lack of funds from the school taxes, to hire build- 
ings, employ teachers, select books, lay off districts, maintain 
discipline, visit schools, examine and expel scholars, and fix sal- 
aries. The board shall appoint a president, one of its own 
number, and a secretary, and shall keep the records and pre- 
pare an annual report. It may lease property and make loans, 
but conveyances of real estate must be made to the city for the 
use of schools. No sale can be made but by the council on the 
written request of the board. "All moneys raised by taxation 
for school purposes shall be held by the city treasurer as a spe- 
cial fund for school purposes, subject to the order of the board, 
upon warrants to be countersigned by the mayor and city clerk." 
The board shall consist of fifteen members, appointed by the 
mayor, with the advice and consent of the council, divided into 
three classes, each holding office for three years. All citizens 
are eligible as members of the board after five years' residence in 
the city. No appropriation shall be made for any sectarian 
school, no teacher shall be interested in the sale of books, appa- 
ratus, or furniture for school use on penalty of a fine from $25 
to $500 and twelve months' imprisonment. 

The importance of this law lay in its transference of all school 
property from the management of the council to that of the 
board. The immediate reason for this was probably the exces- 
sive labor it entailed upon the legislative body of a great city, 
but it was a logical outgrowth of the movement toward centrali- 
zation which began with the amended charter of 1839. Further 
progress in this direction can hardly be expected since school 
taxes are necessarily collected with other taxes by the council, 
and the latter must remain the highest municipal authority. 

In May, 1874, the legislature acted positively upon the sug- 



44 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

gestion which the council had failed to carry out, and passed an 
act requiring that doors in public buildings, opening from the 
main hall or the building itself, shall open outwards. 

The legislation which next touched the schools had financial 
matters under consideration. An act of the year 1878-9 author- 
ized a school tax in Chicago of 5 per cent., two-fifths to be used 
for salaries and three-fifths for buildings and sites. July 1, 1879, 
permission was granted to the board to issue warrants payable 
on demand by the city treasurer in anticipation of 75 per cent, 
of the tax levy. The fact that the taxes were not available for 
nearly a year after the appropriations based upon them were 
mnde, often embarrassed the board sadly and this form of credit 
was intended as a relief measure. 

Questions of sanitation again came to the front in 1883, 
and March 5th the ordinance of 1867 was revised with more 
detail. Vaccination was required of all children whether in pub- 
lic or private schools once in seven years, and a certificate from a 
physician or the health commissioner was necessary to attest to 
the fact. July 21, 1884, a second ordinance was adopted, this 
time against neglect of "reasonable care and precaution respect- 
ing the safety and health " of scholars and attendants and 
respecting "ventilation or cleanliness or strength of buildings 
so that by reason of such neglect or omission the health of any 
person shall suffer or incur any avoidable peril or detriment." 
The sweeping nature of this ordinance and the impossibility of 
enforcing such an indefinite standard relegates this ordinance to 
the position of a rhetorical aside in the serious business of city 
government, yet this and the preceding law with the state statute 
regarding egress from buildings are the only permanent sanitary 
regulations which apply to Chicago schools. The rules which 
the board adopts from time to time have neither the dignity nor 
permanence of city or state laws. 

Reference has already been made to the first compulsory edu- 
cational law of June 23, 1883. It was entitled "An Act to pro- 
mote Elementary Education." Every child, it said, between the 
ages of eight and fourteen must attend school at least three 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 45 

months a year, unless the board or school directors excuse him 
on the ground that he is being taught elsewhere, that the state 
of his health forbids, or that there is no school within two miles. 
Parents or guardians who violated the law were liable to a fine 
of from five to twenty dollars before a justice of the peace. The 
penalty for the nonenforcement of the act by the board or 
directors was ten dollars, to be sued for by the taxpayers. The 
tentative and feeble action here attempted could only be consid- 
ered a step toward something more positive. This improvement 
was aimed at in the law of May 24, 1889. The age limits were 
fixed between seven and fourteen years, the length of school 
attendance sixteen weeks, eight of them to be consecutive. The 
excuses accepted were attendance elsewhere, home teaching or a 
physician's certificate that the condition of health forbade attend- 
ance. The schools must teach English, reading, writing, arith- 
metic, geography, and United States history. The penalty for 
the negligent parent or guardian was fixed from one to twenty 
dollars. Truant officers were to be appointed who could arrest 
any loafing child. False statements rendered parent or guardian 
liable to a fine of from three to twenty dollars. The board was 
to prosecute in police or municipal courts, before police justices 
or county judges. 

Supplementing this act came the "Child Labor Law" of June 
17, 1 89 1, which forbade the employment of any child under thir- 
teen years of age by any person, firm or corporation without the 
consent of the school board, and then eight weeks of school a 
year were required ; and a section of the act "to regulate the 
manufacture of clothing," dated June 17, 1893, which provides 
that "no child under fourteen years shall be employed in any 
manufacturing establishment, factory or workshop within the 
state," that a register giving birthplace, age and residence of 
every child under sixteen years who is employed must be kept, 
and that factory inspectors shall have power to demand a physi- 
cian's certificate of health for such children. Thus the truant 
officers and the factory inspectors have a common interest and 
should work together in enforcing the laws. The Compulsory 



46 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

Education Law was amended June 19, 1893, making changes in 
the jurisdiction within which cases are to be tried. It may now 
be any court of record or before a justice of the peace. Twelve 
consecutive weeks in school are now demanded instead of eight. 
Unfortunately the difficulties of conviction remain as great as 
ever, so that the law has had only the force of persuasion, the 
board being unwilling to bring a test case under it and so prove 
its inefficiency and prepare the way for amendment. 

Returning to legislation on other subjects during this period, 
we find that the general school law of the state was amended 
May 21, 1889, in a few unessential particulars. The board was 
made liable for a fine of from five to one hundred dollars for 
excluding a child from school on account of its color; the mem- 
bers of the board were exempted from road duty and military 
service ; and no teacher was to be employed who was not of good 
moral character and eighteen years old if a man, seventeen if a 
woman. 

A little later in the same year, June 1st, the efforts of the 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union were successful in obtaining 
the passage of a law requiring that all pupils of suitable age be taught 
physiology and hygiene with special reference to the effects of 
alcoholic beverages, stimulants and narcotics, and that teachers 
be examined on these subjects. This effort was part of the gen- 
eral movement which has secured similar laws in nearly every 
state in the Union. It is the only instance in which an organi- 
zation has attempted to secure national agreement in the subject 
matter of instruction and, by the education of the children, form 
common opinion among citizens. 

By the act of June 22, 1891 the general law of 1872 was 
repealed, but the only change in the new law was that the board 
was increased to twenty-one members, divided as before into three 
classes. 

April 17, 1895, the board received authority to support kinder- 
gartens, using for the purpose school taxes. Like the law per- 
mitting evening schools this sanctioned an action already taken 
by the board. It had assumed control of the kindergartens in 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 47 

1892. The law, however, prevents any dispute which might 
arise over the use of public money for a purpose not before 
specified. 

The most recent important law referring to school matters 
was passed May 31, 1895. ^ 1S entitled "A public school 
teachers' and employes' pension and retirement fund in certain 
cities." It applies only to cities having a population of over 
100,000. The board creates the fund by setting apart not 
more than I per cent, of the salaries, and money given for 
the fund. No taxes can be levied or public money appropri- 
ated for this fund. The Board of Education, superintendent, 
and two of the teachers or employes constitute the trustees of 
the fund who decide on the amount to be deducted from salaries 
and administer the fund. The board can retire any female 
teacher or employe who has been employed in the public schools 
for twenty years, and any male teacher or employe who has been 
employed twenty-five years, provided three-fifths of the time of 
service has been in Chicago. Such beneficiaries are entitled to 
one-half the amount of salary received at the time of retirement 
if this half does not exceed $600. The city treasurer is the cus- 
todian of this fund. 

"No teacher or other school employe who has been or shall 
have been elected by said Board of Education shall be removed 
or discharged except for cause upon written charges, which shall 
be investigated and determined by said Board of Education, 
whose action and decision in the matter shall be final." If 
teacher or employe be discharged, when willing to remain, the 
money which he has contributed to the fund shall be repaid with 
interest. 

This bill was suggested, drafted and lobbied by teachers, the 
only one on the statute books directly due to the people most 
closely identified with education. The civil-service clause was 
not an innovation, only a formal expression of the principle 
which had been acted upon for years. 

A single reading of this legal chronicle leaves the impression 
of a series of disconnected enactments, born of occasions, and 



48 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

each independent of the preceding one. Closer scrutiny shows, 
however, a gradual progression in at least three directions. First, 
and comprehensively, there has been growth in definiteness. The 
early laws were general, applying to simple conditions and a 
single type of school ; the later laws have become detailed, 
specific, to correspond with complex, heterogeneous conditions 
and many types of schools. The first laws authorized, without 
defining, "common schools;" the later laws have sanctioned 
special schools like the high schools, evening schools, and kin- 
dergartens, and have prescribed the outline of the course of 
study guaranteed to every child. 

Again, the history of school legislation reveals the growth of 
the conception of organization. Beginning with a form bor- 
rowed, with slight changes, from another community, the lack of 
adaptation to actual conditions and to the spirit of the people, 
soon became evident. Experience and the popular will led 
more and more towards centralization. Certain officials, like 
school commissioners, proved to be unnecessary in a city ; cer- 
tain others, like the superintendent of schools, were created in 
answer to an evident demand originating in the continued 
increase in the size of the schools. Not logic but circumstances 
developed the conception ; the law gave it form as it changed 
and grew. 

In like manner the questions of business and finance were 
met. The first laws were in anticipation of needs, in advance of 
public thought, and they could not be enforced. Gradually a 
need for revenue compelled a scheme of taxation, and the pos- 
session of larger sums of money necessitated regulations for its 
management, and the law responded to the need and crystallized 
the thoughts already being acted out. 

The legislation on compulsory education was a logical out- 
growth of the doctrine announced in the ordinance of 1787, but 
its efficient cause was rather the example and arguments pre- 
sented in other states. The different acts have followed naturally 
as amendments, one of another. 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 49 

With the exception, therefore, of the sanitary laws, that 
requiring temperance instruction, and the pension bill, there are 
no isolated acts among the school statutes, though the progress 
toward increased complexity, definiteness and efficiency has, like 
the growth of the school system, been unconscious. The legis- 
lation has as a whole been alive; "dead-letter" laws are chiefly 
represented by the partially effective compulsory-education 
laws. 



CHAPTER III. 

FINANCIAL. 

Of all the tests to which democratic institutions are subjected, 
that which estimates their value in terms of economics is perhaps 
the most easy of application. The general question is, How far 
do the people conserve their own interests when they control 
their property? Do they make careful investments? Are they 
honest with themselves, or are they more sensitive to the influ- 
ence of individuals than to their collective needs? 

Conventionally the answer has been taken for granted in the 
United States, but if one ventures to question the popular opti- 
mism that says, " Whatever the people do is right in the long run," 
the history of western public schools affords some thought-pro- 
voking data, and Chicago contributes its not unimportant quota 
to this. 

As reference to the history of the state has already shown, 
Section 16 in each township of Illinois, as of the other states 
formed out of the Northwest Territory, was given by the general 
government for the support of common schools. This section in 
the township of Chicago was bounded by State and Halsted, 
Madison and Twelfth streets, a square mile, whose value today 
is almost incalculable. In 1833, however, when the Town of 
Chicago was first organized, there was no seer among the towns- 
folk to show them the value of their common holding ; no one 
sanguine enough to prophesy that the straggling hamlet at the 
sand-choked mouth of a little river would ever become a great 
city, and the square mile of low prairie be valued at tens or hun- 
dreds of millions of dollars. It is easy today to see the folly of 
the settlers in counting a small, immediate gain better than a 
problematic future advantage, but it is doubtful if any individual 
was wiser at that time. A recognized duty rested upon the 

50 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 51 

town — to educate the children ; taxes would have been insuffi- 
cient, even if their unpopularity had not put them among the 
unavailable resources ; and there only remained the public lands, 
for which there was a slight but calculable demand. The opinion 
in favor of selling the school section appears to have been unani- 
mous, and the petition for the sale was signed by the voters of 
the town. The section was divided into 142 blocks, 138 of 
which were sold for $38,619.47. The sale was made on terms of 
one, two and three years, at 10 per cent, interest. This consti- 
tuted the school fund for several years, until the reserved blocks 
became productive by adding rentals. The property retained 
included block I, bounded by Madison, Halsted, Monroe and 
So. Union streets; blocks 87 and 88, between Fifth Avenue and 
the river, Harrison and Polk streets; and block 142, bounded 
by Madison, Monroe, State and Dearborn streets. 

The fund obtained from the sale was loaned out, and public 
schools opened, but it was but a meager revenue at best. The 
small amounts which were reckoned with in the early years are 
illustrated by the difficulties encountered by the trustees of Dis- 
trict No. 4. They borrowed $200 from the school fund in 1836 
to build a schoolhouse, but were unable to obtain money to 
repay the debt, and in 1840 they were sued by the school agent. 
They pleaded for a stay in the proceedings, believing that the 
emergency would sufficiently impress the taxpayers to make the 
collection of local taxes possible. 

The control of the fund and school lands was vested in the 
school commissioner from 1831 to 1839, when it was transferred 
to the city council. The latter body retained the direct charge 
until 185 1, when a school agent, acting under the council's direc- 
tion, was made the manager of the fund, not of the property. 
In 1865 the appointment of the officer was given to the board, 
and in 1872 the entire control of both lands and fund was given 
to the board, subject only to the advice of the council. Criti- 
cism of school business methods down to 1872 is therefore criti- 
cism of the municipal government, except in so far as it refers 
to salaries or the maintenance of the schools. 



52 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

A very slight addition to the school funds was obtained in 
1836, when the United States divided the surplus revenue among 
the states, and Illinois devoted her portion to school uses. The 
panic of 1837, however, so reduced the chief source of revenue, 
the interest on the fund, that an entire closure of the schools 
was reported, and the Committee on Public Schools appointed 
by the council during the next year regarded it as bad policy to 
loan to individuals, the collection of interest was so difficult. 

In June 1839 the inspectors recommended that blocks I, 87 
and 88 be leased for agricultural purposes and that block 142 be 
divided into 16 lots, 49x150 feet, and be rented for not less 
than $30 a year. The latter recommendation does not seem to 
have been carried out at the time, but in 1842 block 142 was 
subdivided and leased for ten years to the highest bidder. Three 
years later the city was able for the first time to erect a permanent 
schoolhouse at a cost of $7500. 

A legal contest which arose in 1875 between the city and 
certain claimants of " wharfmg-lot privileges " resulted in a further 
increase of the school fund. The suit was decided by the 
claimants paying a fixed amount for the lots with interest at 6 
per cent, until the principal was paid. All over $30,000 was to 
go to the school fund. This surplus proved to be $68,061.94, 
almost twice as much as the original fund, and a very acceptable 
addition to school revenues. 

In 1855 block 1 was subdivided for renting purposes, and 
in 1858 block 87 was leased to the city for $800 a year. The 
president of the board called attention to the fact that a block next 
to the latter was rented for $5667, and he suggested with some 
asperity that public interests were insufficiently guarded. The 
school-fund property was at this time valued at $990,000, an 
evidence of the marvelous growth of the city in twenty years. 
Taxes, however, remained insufficient, and the board urged the 
city to issue bonds in order to meet the growing demands of the 
schools. Complaint was also made that state taxes were not 
equitably divided. Chicago was receiving about $ 1 9,000 in 1 860. 
In 1870 this had increased to $35,000. 



HIE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 53 

Before the war the city erected on an average one school- 
house a year for six or seven years, but during the war the 
income from loans and rentals was so seriously diminished that 
building stopped and a debt of $30,000 was reported. The tax 
rate, three mills on the dollar, was felt to be so inadequate that 
a law was secured raising it to five mills. Two-fifths of this was 
for salaries, the remainder for buildings and sites. The income 
from the fund was legally devoted to salaries. 

The difficulty of obtaining funds led to the issuance of bonds 
under special laws. Between May 3, 1867, and June 20, 1870, 
the issues amounted to $1,200,000. That of May 3, 1867, was 
$200,000 for two years at 7 per cent.; that of December 9, 1867, 
$150,000; that of June 8, 1868, $1 50,000 ; that of September 27, 
1869, $200,000 for thirty years ; that of May 30, 1870, $200,000 ; 
and that of June 20, 1870, $200,000. 

With this help building was renewed. Ten new school- 
houses in four years brought upon the council the charge of 
extravagance, but the steady demand for more accommodations 
was a justification of the policy. 

In 1870 the council provided for the appointment of 
appraisers to value the school-fund property. They returned 
a valuation of $2,612,612, but the council reduced this to 
$1,852,424, at the instigation of the tenants, being unable, as 
they said, to obtain juster terms. The rentals were calculated 
at 6 per cent, upon this valuation. One of the most serious 
effects of the fire of 187 1 upon the schools was the disputes 
which resulted between the city and the lessees regarding this 
appraisal and the consideration demanded by those of the latter 
who had been burned out. The latter objected to the appraisal 
and refused to pay full rent. The controversy continued until 
May 13, 1872, and was settled then only by a compromise. The 
city agreed to accept 60 per cent, of the rent, in the burned 
district, for two years before May I, 1872, under the appraisal 
of 1870, but a revaluation was to be made May 1, 1872. All 
over payments were to be applied to rents after the latter date. 
The completion of this settlement became the duty of the board 



54 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

to whom the control of school lands was given by the law 
of 1872. The suits which had been begun against the city were 
not all settled for three years. 

Upon assuming control, the board, not unnaturally and prob- 
ably with justice, took occasion to criticise the council's admin- 
istration of the property. Instead of 6 per cent, the leases were 
only about 3 per cent, on the valuation. Lessees were growing 
rich at the expense of the public. In despair at their conscience- 
less actions the president of the board advised that all the real 
estate be sold and the proceeds be invested in some safer secur- 
ities at 7 per cent. — a suggestion prudently ignored by the 
council and board. 

The first independent action of the board indicated a desire 
to obtain a larger income from the school lands. On Sep- 
tember 1, 1872, it leased to the city lots 14, 17, 20 and 23 in 
block 1 13 for 99 years, at 6 per cent, on a valuation double that 
of 1870, until 1875, a ft er which there should be a reappraisal 
every five years. Lots 16, 21 and 22 in block 113 were leased 
for twenty-two years from May 1, 1873 at 6 per cent., on a 
valuation of $600 a front foot for lot 16 and $800 for lot 22 
until 1880. After that there should be a revaluation every 
five years. The old Post Office site was leased in 1875 for 
three years for $22,500 and the erection of improvements 
costing $15,000. 

As it became familiar with details, the board made still 
further complaints regarding the council's administration. Por- 
tions of the school property had for years been leased for disrep- 
utable purposes and troublesome litigation resulted from the 
efforts required to remove the objectionable tenants. Delin- 
quent rents, due in some cases to contests over disputed titles, 
amounted in 1875 to over $200,000. Eighty acres of land in 
Palos had been lost to the city through illegal titles held by 
unscrupulous persons who had proved keener than the council 
in advancing their interests. Mr. I. R. Hitt was openly charged 
with having secured deeds to school-fund property amounting 
to $200,000. The council was not accused of fraud in these 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 55 

transactions, but of inefficiency that had resulted in fatal blunders. 
Whether it were dishonesty or incapacity, public interests suf- 
fered seriously. 

A new source of difficulty for the board in 1873-6 was the 
failure of the city to collect taxes. Building had to be stopped 
because the appropriations were only on paper. In 1878, after 
the collections had been partially made, the defalcation of the 
city treasurer caused fresh losses so that $425,500 of the appro- 
priation remained unpaid. The mayor ordered that none of the 
city departments should spend more than 80 per cent, of their 
appropriations, and it was found necessary to pay the teachers 
in city script that entailed upon them a loss of 18 per cent. 

Most of the old leases expired in the spring of 1880 and 
there were found to be troublesome questions to be solved 
regarding the disposition of the improvements which lessees had 
made. The leases had provided for the purchase of the improve- 
ments or the sale of the land, but there was no legal authority 
for the latter procedure and the board had no money with 
which to effect purchases. At this juncture Mr. Elbridge Keith 
undertook the business and he was able after considerable delay 
to obtain money settlements with some advantage to the board. 

The appraisal of 1880, the second made under the direction 
of the board, valued the school real estate at $2,572,316, not as 
high as the first valuation of 1870 but considerably higher than 
the one allowed by the council at that time. Most of the new 
leases were for 50 years with revaluation every five years. The 
old Post Office site was re-leased for fifty years to the First 
National Bank at a rental for the first five years of $21,636. 

During the five years that followed the exertions of the 
board were put forth to meet the demand for accommodations, 
an effort so often thwarted by the delay or refusal of the council 
to sanction the purchase of desired sites that the school com- 
mittee was severely blamed for lack of public spirit, and unpleas- 
ant friction was roused between the two bodies. 

The next appraisal, that of 1885, made according to the leases 
of 1880, fixed the value of school lands at $3,975,746. This was 



56 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

received by the tenants in a spirit of active opposition. They 
claimed that the appraisers had admitted improper evidence, had 
slighted the statements of the lessees and — the special griev- 
ance — had sought to obtain information regarding the rental 
value of the buildings on the land and the profits which the ten- 
ants received. Twenty-two of the tenants filed bills in chancery 
to set aside the appraisal and secure concessions from the board. 
The litigation lasted for three years and during this time the 
rents were deposited with the First National Bank pending the 
settlement, so that the board was deprived of a considerable part 
of its income. 

An arrangement was finally made by which supplementary 
leases were granted, June 15, 1888. The most important of the 
new provisions in this agreement were that future appraisements 
should be for ten instead of five years : that the appraisers should 
be appointed by the board, a judge of the Circuit Court and a 
judge of the Probate Court, each naming one appraiser ; that the 
time for termination of the leases be extended from 1930 to 1985 ; 
that no appraisal should be binding that fixed a value less than 
80 per cent, of the value found in 1880; and that lessees should 
on demand furnish a statement of the rental receipts and dis- 
bursements for the buildings on the land in question. 

Before this compromise was effected another became inevi- 
table. The Chicago and Great Western Railroad which had 
occupied a portion of the school land near the river contrived in 
some way, not creditable to the board's business sagacity, to 
secure the leasehold interests of all the tenants of block 88 and 
the north half of block 87. It then commenced condemnation 
proceedings against the board to obtain the property and proved 
to be legally in a position to dictate the terms of the purchase. 
The sale was finally made in February 1886 for $650,000 secured 
by a mortgage on the property for 50 years at 5 per cent, interest 
payable semi-annually. Failure to pay the interest involved the 
right of the board to charge 8 per cent. The company was to 
erect a depot at a cost of $250,000 within a year. 

The school property was increased at various times by the 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 57 

addition of real estate acquired by the foreclosures of mortgages, 
and by the annexation of neighboring towns. Thus Cicero and 
Jefferson were annexed in 1888, Hyde Park in 1889, Rogers 
Park in 1893 and Norwood Park in 1894. The addition of Hyde 
Park and the smaller districts that were taken into the city about 
the same time, brought to the board financial anxieties. The 
local boards had provided for their schools only till June 30, 
1890, while the city financial year extended from January first to 
December thirty-first. Six months support of the new schools 
was unprovided for by appropriations. A loss of $500,000, was 
the result. The city appropriation for the year was but $2,- 
000,000. This was increased to $5,000,000, for 1891, but as 
the taxes were not available for a year after the levy was made, 
it was necessary to borrow to meet the emergency. In addition 
to its own debt, the board also assumed the debt of the annexed 
districts amounting to $953,300. 

The lack of harmony between the board and the city govern- 
ment found renewed expression in 1894-5 when the city comp- 
troller refused to set aside the school taxes as a separate fund as 
the school law prescribes, and even refused to honor warrants 
drawn upon the school money. The fact that the comptroller is 
not even recognized by the school law, which gives the city 
treasurer control of the funds, added sharpness to the report in 
which the finance committee of the board pointed out the evils 
that might come upon schools if the law was violated and the 
city tempted to misappropriate the school taxes. The school 
attorney was at once instructed to take legal measures to compel 
compliance with the law in this first conspicuous instance of its 
violation. 

As the time approached for the appraisal of 1895 a number 
of the tenants indicated a desire to obtain a modification of their 
leases whereby the clause providing for revaluation every ten 
years should be set aside and either a fixed or graduated rental 
for the balance of the term be substituted. Two settlements of 
this kind were effected, with Mr. John M. Smyth, lessee of lot I, 
block 1 of the school section, and with the Chicago Daily News 



58 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

Company occupying lot 6, block 55, Original Town of Chicago. 
The former was paying under the appraisement of 1885 a yearly 
rental of $6,139.50. He offered to pay $1 1,000 a year until the 
expiration of his term and his offer was accepted. The Daily 
News Company was paying an annual rental of $8400. It 
proposed to pay $13,200 a year for the next five years and 
$14,400 for the remainder of the time to 1985. To this propo- 
sition the board agreed, waiving as in the first case, the right of 
reappraisal. 

In both settlements the board claimed great credit for secur- 
ing peculiarly advantageous terms. Yet it is of interest to com- 
pare the second of these leases with certain others in the same 
vicinity. The terms are taken from the Eighth Report of the 
State Bureau of Labor for 1894. The Daily News Company 
occupies a building numbered 1 75-1 81 Madison Street. The 
lot is 80 X 179.9 feet. On La Salle Street, 80 feet south of Wash- 
ington Street the Exchange Building Company occupies 80 X 120 
feet on a 99-year lease dated 1893. The provisions of the lease 
are, the erection within two years of a building to cost not less 
than $400,000, to go to lessor at the conclusion of the lease for 
one-half its appraised value, or the lease may be extended 99 
years at $30,000 a year, buildings to go to lessor at the end of 
that time. Rent for the first year $10,000 ; for the remaining 98 
years, $30,000 a year. 

Again on Washington Street, west of La Salle Street, 40 X 102 
feet is leased to F. C. Giddings for 99 years at $ 1 1 ,400 a year, the 
improvements to be purchased at one-half their value by the lessor. 

The southeast corner of Madison Street and Fifth Avenue, 
46 X 100 feet, is leased for 99 years to C. H. Marshall ; lessee to 
erect within a year an eight-story building costing not less than 
$100,000 to be purchased by the lessor at the end of the time at 
appraised value. Annual rent for five years is $12,500; for 94 
years, $15,000. 

The northwest corner of the same streets, 10 X 60 feet, is leased 
to Edward Baggott for 99 years for $22,100 a year and improve- 
ments. 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 59 

The board's reason for considering their terms just was that 
the Daily News Company already possessed an adequate building 
and so would not increase its revenue in future by erecting a lar- 
ger structure, an explanation that seems scarcely adequate. 

Being unable to come to any agreement with other tenants, 
the board appointed appraisers for 1895 according to the agree- 
ment of 1888. Messrs. Gwynn Garnett, David G. Hamilton and 
Hon. Eugene Cary served in this capacity. Their valuation of 
school property was $7, 288, 233. 33, almost double the preceding 
estimate. The tenants very soon expressed again their desire to 
have their leases modified so that there should be no reappraisals 
in future, and this met with the approval of the board since they 
believed it would conform to the growing custom in down-town 
districts. Five settlements of this kind were concluded before 
the close of the school year 1895-6. Messrs. Hannah and Hogg, 
lessees of lot 6, block 58, Original Town of Chicago, or 81-87 
Madison Street, 80X 160.28 feet, agreed to pay $24,000 annual 
rent for ten years and for the balance of the term the same rental 
plus 5 per cent, of said rental and to erect a modern building 
within the next five years, costing not less than $250,000. 
Compared with leases for adjacent property this appears to be a 
fair average rental. 

The second tenant was the Tribune Company occupying lots 
12, 13 and 14 of block 142, school section : i. e. 72 X 120 feet on 
the corner of Madison and Dearborn streets. The company, 
having already a satisfactory building, agreed to pay $30,000 for 
ten years and an addition of 5 per cent, for the balance of the 
term. 

On the opposite, southwest, corner from the Tribune Companv 
the Hartford Deposit Company hold a 99-year lease for 92^ X 
50 feet. The conditions of this lease dated May 1, 1892, are 
$60,000 to be paid lessor May 1, 1892; lessees to erect within 
two years a fire-proof building costing not less than $175,000; 
lessor to have the privilege of purchase at the end of the time 
at appraised value, or lessee may renew the lease for 99 years at 
5 per cent, on appraised value, or building be removed. The 



60 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

rent for the first year is $23,000 ; for the second $24,000 ; for the 
third $25,000; for the fourth $26,000; for 95 years $27,000. 

On the northwest corner of Madison and Dearborn streets 
Marshall Field leases 20X40 feet to the Inter Ocean Company for 
$10,000 a year. 

Evidently the Tribune Company did not allow its civic pride 
to interfere with business in this transaction. Such comparative 
showings as the above lend color to the charges freely made on 
the street that Mr. Trude, president of the board and member of 
the committee on school-fund property, was also the attorney of 
the Tribune Company. Attempts to discuss the subject publicly 
were certainly discouraged by the newspapers, which neglected 
to publish any criticism on the action of the board. 

The third settlement was with Mrs. Caroline F. Wilson, lessee 
of 40 X 120 feet on Dearborn Street between Madison and Monroe 
streets. As in the case of the Tribune Company the building 
on the property was considered satisfactory and the same 
arrangement was made, a rent of 6 per cent, on the appraised 
value for the first ten years and an addition of 5 per cent, on the 
rental for the remainder of the term. The rent for the ten years 
is $7980 annually. 

Here again comparison with certain other leases indicates 
that the school fund did not receive all that might have been 
secured for it. W. S. Boyce holds a lease for 99 years of 40.8^ 
100.4 f ee t on Dearborn Street south of Washington Street. He 
was to erect, before 1896 — the lease was dated May 1, 1891 — a 
building to cost not less than $100,000, the lessor to purchase 
improvements at appraised value. The annual rental for the first 
five years was $ 1 1 ,000 ; for 94 years, $ 1 1 ,500. 

A similar piece of property on Clark Street south of Madison 
Street, 43X125 feet with an |_ on Arcade Court 22^X80 feet, 
was leased for 99 years in 1893 at an annual rental of $12,000; 
20 feet north of Madison Street on Clark Street, 21^ X 80 feet is 
held by F. M. Atwood on a 90-year lease for $6080 a year. 

Two other settlements were made by the board with Mr. E. 
H. Van Ingen, lessee of lot 2, block 52, school section and Mr. 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 6 1 

Harry Brown, lessee of the east 66 feet of lot 9, block 50, 
Original Town of Chicago. The former had paid an annual rental 
of $960 under the appraisal of 1885: under that of 1895 h e 
would have paid #2400. By the new terms he pays $3000 and 
erects within five years a building costing not less than $50,000. 
Mr. Brown's rental according to the revised lease is a graduated 
one. From 1895 to l 9°S tne rent * s $2400 a year; from 1905 
to 191 5, $2520; from 191 5 to 1925, $2640; from 1925 to 1985 
$2760. In both cases the revaluation clause was omitted. 

As a final comparison, not of rents but of values, we may con- 
sider different estimates placed upon what all judges agree is the 
most valuable property in Chicago, the southwest corner of 
State and Madison streets. Mr. F. R. Chandler prepared for the 
Real Estate Board a table showing the economic history of one- 
quarter of an acre, or 100X 109 feet, at this corner. Condensing 
the table as quoted in the State Bureau of Labor Report for 
1894 it reads : 



1830.. 


$ 20 


1855. 


.$ 40,000 


1880. 


..$ 130,000 


1835.. 


5,000 


i860. 


28,000 


1885.. 


275,000 


1840.. 


1,500 


1865. 


45,000 


1890.. 


900,000 


1845.. 


5,000 


1870. 


. 120,000 


1894.. 


. 1,250,000 


1850.. 


17,500 


1875. 


92,000 







The appraised value for 8640 square feet at this corner was 
$725,000. The board admitted that the appraised valuation 
might fall below what the property would bring in the open 
market were it free from all incumbrances ; the appraisers were 
inclined to be conservative. Yet whatever criticism of the board 
or appraisers has been made by outsiders is spoken vaguely. 
No one claiming to have proof of unfair dealings is willing to 
allow his name to appear under any incriminating statement, but 
even an untechnical examination of the leases is sufficient to show 
that the Finance Committee feels very tenderly toward the ten- 
ants and is strongly inclined to guard them from the exactions 
of the public whom the committee is ostensibly serving. 

The board's difficulties resulting from the appraisal of 1895 
were not all ended by the settlements just quoted. Six suits 



62 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

were brought against it by tenants for the purpose of annulling 
the appraisement and enjoining the board from collecting rents 
due under it. The judgment rendered by the Appellate Court 
entirely upheld the board and four of the suits were at once 
withdrawn. The two remaining will undoubtedly be decided in 
the same way. 

A less creditable case is that of James Goggin, lessee of lots 
on the corner of Clark and Harrison streets. His leases expired 
May 8, 1895, ^ ut m tne annual report for 1895-6 the Finance 
Committee says that he refuses to leave or pay rent under the 
new appraisal, claiming that "he is entitled to an extension of 
the term of his leases, under an oral agreement made with the 
Board of Education in 1888." The committee admits that it 
knows Mr. Goggin has no legal claim but its instinctive desire 
for a compromise prevented it from bringing suit against him 
for a year, and for still another year the schools are likely to be 
without these rents. 

In view of the diffused responsibility for financial manage- 
ment under the board's regime and of the often dubious reputa- 
tion of the councils that controlled the property before 1872, it 
is remarkable that the schools have suffered so little from poor 
administration. The only ground for surprise is that more land 
was not stolen by sharpers with illegal titles and more advan- 
tages given away as leases. On the whole popular optimism 
has been justified to some degree ; matters have not been as bad 
as they might have been ! A lack of sensitive social conscience 
and consciousness has prevented the board from serving its 
vaguely conceived employer, the people, as zealously as it would 
have done a definitely organized company that could hold it to 
strict accountability, while unbusinesslike methods, an illogical 
division of labor between several committees and officers without 
a head, have rendered economical administration still more 
difficult. 

The appended tables give somewhat fragmentary data 
regarding the sex of teachers, their salaries, and general finan- 
cial statements taken from the annual reports of the board. 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 



63 



TABLE II — SEX OF TEACHERS. 





M. 


F. 




M. 


F. 




M. 


F. 


1846 
1851 


' 3 

4 


6 
20 


1880 


( 22 Prins. 

( 15 Assts. 


\ 4I 
^820 


1895 


( III P. 

1 188 A. 


\ 102 
( 3925 


1858 
1863 
1865 


17 
23 
24 


62 
189 
241 


1885 


1 32 P. 
1 19 A. 


I 1207 


1896 


\ "5 P. 

) 241 A. 


( 105 

(4207 


1870 


31 


506 


1890 


(99 P. 

(80 A. 


C 81 








1875 


34 


666 


1 1433 









TABLE III — TEACHERS' SALARIES. 



1838 
184S 

1850 

1851 

1854 



1856 



Male teachers, #400 ; female, $200. 
Male teachers, $500 ; female, $250. 
Music teachers, $250. 
Music teachers, #200. 
Male teachers, $300-$8oo. 
Female teachers, $150-^400. 
Male principals, $900-$iOOO. 
Primary principals, $350. 
Male assistants, $300. 
Female assistants, $250. 
Male principals, $8oo-$i50o. 
Primary principals, $325-^400. 
Male assistants, $1000. 
Female assistants, $250-5500. 



1868 Drawing teachers, $1000. 

Music teachers, $1000. 
1883 Special teachers, $500-^1700. 

H. S. principals, $2400. 

H. S. assistants, $400-^2175. 

G. & P. principals, $iioo-$2I75. 

G. & P. assistants, $470-^950. 
1890 Special teachers, $450-^2400. 
1895 Principals, $2500 (maximum). 

Head assistants, $1000. 

G. assistants, $450-^850. 

P. assistants, $450-^775. 

Special teachers, $1000-^1500 (av. 

Supervisors, $2200-$3000. 



6 4 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CLILCAGO 



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CHAPTER IV. 
PEDAGOGICAL. 

The ideal in the minds of the early teachers in Chicago was 
singularly primitive and simple. The schools, being independent 
of each other and under no real supervision, pursued diverse 
methods, but with one aim, to furnish elementary instruction in 
the traditional "three R's." Whatever action was taken under 
the special law of 1835 nac ^ no reference to courses of study or the 
selection of books, for the report made to the city by the special 
committee of 1838 first expressed the conviction that there 
should be uniform text-books and modes of instruction. From 
the slight hints given in records of the time it is evident that 
only the crudest attempts at forming classes were made, scholars 
used such books as they chanced to own, and no distractions in 
the way of beauty were encouraged in the bare, often unplastered 
rooms. 

It was 1840 before the inspectors took advantage of their 
legal rights to interfere with the management of the schools, and 
even then they made but a cautious step, as if they feared revolt 
against their authority. They authorized the use of five books, 
classics of the day ; Worcester's Primer, The Elementary Speller, 
and Parley's First, Second and Third Books of History. About 
a year later they increased the list by adding three readers, 
"Exercises in Composition," arithmetics, geographies, an 
algebra and a grammar. Scripture reading without comments 
was the prescribed exercise for opening the schools. About the 
same time vocal music was introduced, to the delight of the 
scholars, but the dissatisfaction of parents, who objected, appar- 
ently, to having $16 a month of their money put to such an 
unpractical use. The special teacher could not be reengaged a 
second year for lack of funds, and when the study was again 

65 



66 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

taken up, in 1846, the scholars paid the teacher's salary for the 
first year. Since that time, however, with the exception of a few 
years during the Civil War, music has always had an unquestioned 
place upon the school program. 

There are no records to reveal the condition of affairs during 
the thirteen years between the time of the first resolute action 
on the part of the inspectors and the appointment of a superin- 
tendent of schools, but the conditions existing at the latter date, 
1854, indicate quite clearly that similarity of text-books, if indeed 
it still existed, was insufficient to secure order or wield the pupils 
and teachers into an effective educational body. The superin- 
tendent found that there was no grading whatever and that no 
records were kept, either of attendance or rank, so that it was 
difficult to tell who belonged to a school or what advancement 
had been made. Many scholars spent their mornings in one 
department, their afternoons in another, while principals were 
so occupied in trying to keep order that they had no time to 
teach. Altogether there was a state of anarchy prevailing which 
appeared most shocking to a man trained in progressive Massa- 
chusetts schools. Mr. Dore took vigorous reform measures at 
once. Systematic registration and daily records were insisted 
upon, and a general examination was held in order to secure a 
proper classification. Similar classes were organized in all the 
schools. Incidentally, it seems to have been somewhat of a sur- 
prise to the superintendent to find that the results obtained under 
the old, lax methods had been, after all, very satisfactory in the 
matter of scholarship. Grammar was the only subject in which 
he noted deficiency. 

The demand for more advanced studies and for a training 
school for teachers was responded to in 1856 by the erection of 
a high school with three departments, classical, English, and 
normal. No record of the courses of study is at hand, but a 
reference to the need for scientific apparatus indicates that 
"natural philosophy" had a place in the curriculum. 

With the opening of the high school a new feature of school 
life was introduced, public oral examinations of candidates for 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO t>7 

the high school. These were held in large halls and became 
occasions of great social interest and influence. The honors won 
meant much in the little city. The contest had something of 
the dignity of provincial Olympic games, serving the threefold 
purpose of stimulating the younger students, rewarding faithful 
work and, perhaps most important of all, rousing parents to a 
loyal and intelligent interest in the schools. The custom pre- 
vailed for a number of years and was only dropped when the 
great increase in pupils made it impossible to continue it. 

A new idea destined to fructify later was repeatedly expressed 
by the president of the board in 1858, '59, and '60 : the idea that 
bodies as well as brains should be cultivated in school. Six 
hours of work a day without physical exercise and often under 
improper conditions could not develop healthy bodies. To such 
warnings as this was probably due the introduction of free-hand 
gymnastics in 1861. In the same suggestion the boys of the 
high school found encouragement to build a gymnasium for the 
school at a cost of $100. 

In 1 86 1 also an important forward step was taken in the 
adoption of a graded course of study, the first in Illinois. Its 
author was Mr. William H. Wells, superintendent of schools. 
He embodied in it his favorite idea of object lessons, an idea 
borrowed from German educators and through his work intro- 
duced into several other American cities. The course of study 
as a whole furnished the model and outline which all subsequent 
courses have followed. For this reason it is worth while to 
reproduce its main features. 

There were five grades in both primary and grammar schools. 
They were numbered from 10 to 1, commencing with the lowest. 

TENTH GRADE. 

1. Oral instruction: common objects of daily life, form and 
color, familiar domestic animals, manners and morals. 

2. Recitation of verses and maxims. Reading from charts. 

3. Counting from 1 to 10. Examples in addition. 

4. Drawing from tablets. Printing. 



68 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

5. Physical exercises as often as every half hour, 3 to 5 
minutes. 

NINTH GRADE. 

I and 2. As above. Primer added. 

3. As above, with Arabic numerals from 1 to 100, Roman I to 
IX. 

4. As above. 

5. Five times daily. 

1. Added the meaning of dozen, score, right, the days of the 
week, articles of furniture, fruits. 

EIGHTH GRADE. 

1. Size and qualities of objects, trades and professions, name 
of the state, county and city with their chief officers, divisions of 
time, moral lessons. 

2. Portion of first reader, spelling, definitions. 

3. Text-book to subtraction. 
4 and 5. As above. 

SEVENTH GRADE. 

1. Form, size, weight of objects; animals; the five senses; 
manners and morals; common objects as watch, rope, nails, etc. 

2. First reader finished. Spelling. 

3. Text-book continued. Exercises in addition and subtrac- 
tion. 

4 and 5. As above. 

SIXTH GRADE. 

1. The circle, ellipse ; classes of animals, their habits, the 
wisdom of God shown in their adaptations ; shells, foreign prod- 
ucts, manners and morals. 

2. Half of second reader with spelling. Abbreviations. 

3. First arithmetic finished. 

4. Script and drawing from tablets. 

5. Four times daily. 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 69 

FIFTH GRADE. 

1. Regular solids ; parts, structure, growth and uses of plants ; 
geography of the city, bridges, streets, railways, public build- 
ings, schools, commerce, history, population ; Cook county, 
Illinois, United States, using globe; manners and morals. 

2. Second reader finished, spelling, abbreviations, declama- 
tions. 

3. Colburn's First Lessons, multiplication to 12 X 12 ; division 
to 144-^12. 

4 and 5. As above. 

FOURTH GRADE. 

i. Production and velocity of sound, voice, musical instru- 
ments ; velocity of light, reflection, refraction, the microscope 
and telescope, eyes, rainbow, etc.; composition of air and water, 
wind, fog, dew, etc.; printing, copyright; Chicago's commerce; 
reform schools and prisons of Illinois, manners and morals. 

2. Portion of third reader. Declamations. 

3. Colburn's First Lessons. Exercises to long division. 

4. As above. 

5. Three times daily. 

6. Construction of sentences. 

7. Geography. 

THIRD GRADE. 

i. Historical characters; magnetism and electricity; com- 
mon minerals ; parts of speech ; manners and morals. 

2. Third reader finished. Portion of fourth reader. 

3. Colburn's Arithmetic. Exercises to denominate fractions. 
4 and 5. As above. 

6. Text-book in grammar, to the verb. 

7. To the commerce of the United States. Map drawing. 

SECOND GRADE. 

1. Properties of matter, laws of motion, specific gravity, 
water wheels, pendulum, suction, etc.; physiology and hygiene of 
eating, bathing, exercise; manners and morals. 



70 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

2. Fourth reader finished. 

3. Colburn's Arithmetic finished. Exercises to analysis. 
4 and 5. As above. 

6. To classification of sentences. Composition, abstracts, 
etc. 

7. To Asia. Map drawing from memory. 

8. History of the United States to the Revolutionary War. 

FIRST GRADE. 

1. Motions of the earth, seasons, tides, solar system, moon, 
eclipses, planets, comets, constellations; elements of bookkeep- 
ing; general structure of national, state, city, and town govern- 
ment and comparison with the government of Great Britain, 
Russia, and Switzerland ; origin and nature of the Declaration of 
Independence, Constitution, and trial by jury ; heat; geology 
of the United States ; manners and morals. 

2. First-reader class. Declamations. Analysis of words. 

3. Review of arithmetic. 
4 and 5. As above. 

6. Grammar finished. Parsing. Composition. 

7. Geography finished. 

8. History of the United States finished. Outline of Eng- 
lish history. Music once a week, thirty minutes in primary 
forty in grammar grades. 

The high school offered three courses. 

GENERAL OR ENGLISH COURSE. 

1st year. Arithmetic, algebra, descriptive geography, gram- 
mar, and analysis, physical geography, reading, German or 
Latin. 

2d year. Algebra, geometry, United States history, botany, 
reading, German or Latin. 

3d year. Geometry, trigonometry, mensuration, navigation, 
surveying, physiology, natural philosophy, rhetoric, English 
literature, German, Latin or French. 

4th year. Astronomy, chemistry, geology, mineralogy, logic, 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 7 I 

intellectual science, moral science, political economy, Constitu- 
tion of the United States, bookkeeping, German, Latin or 
French. 

Composition for four years ; drawing for three. 

CLASSICAL COURSE. 

ist year. Same as general course with the addition of 
Latin. 

2d year. Same as general course with the addition of 
Latin ; classic antiquities. 

3d year. Greek, Latin, physiology, natural philosophy, 
civics. 

4th year. Greek, Latin, mythology, 

Declamation and composition for three years. 

NORMAL COURSE. 

rst year. Same as general course with the omission of Latin 
and German and the addition of United States and general his- 
tory. 

2d year. Natural philosophy, physiology, chemistry, astron- 
omy, arithmetic, grammar, rhetoric, bookkeeping, Constitution 
of the United States, English literature, mental philosophy. 

Reading, composition, theory of teaching throughout the 
course ; drawing four terms. 

Vocal music forty-five minutes once a week for all members 
of the high school. 

The most novel and characteristic feature of these courses 
was the oral instruction given in the primary and grammar 
grades. Its origin was a dim perception that the child must be 
made acquainted with his environment, but the author was 
unconscious of such a perception ; his conscious aim was a dis- 
ciplinary one. According to his own statement the object of 
the course was "to cultivate observation and secure accurate use 
of language." The modern teacher sees in it a foreshadowing 
of the idea of correlation and the sociological belief that a 
knowledge of the immediate social environment is essential for 



72 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

future citizens. In the elaborate construction of the scheme, 
with its lack of coherence and continuity, there is yet an 
attempt to proceed from the known to the unknown, from the 
simple to the complex ; and while in the hands of poor teachers 
the course may have been but a catalogue of unrelated facts, it 
nevertheless offered the children more opportunities for coming 
in contact with reality than they had later when in the high 
school they brushed the fringes of all the sciences by a term's 
course in each without laboratories. Mr. Wells' thought, how- 
ever crudely expressed, was a remarkable apprehension of a 
principle which the body of educators have but recently begun 
to adopt. That it was prematurely presented explains why it 
was gradually disregarded when Mr. Wells' personal influence 
was withdrawn. 

Another idea of the course which has always remained a 
dominant one was the importance placed upon the study of 
United States history and the Constitution. The attention given 
to local governments and institutions was unfortunately consid- 
ered less essential in later years. 

The high -school courses were weaker than those of the 
lower schools inasmuch as they were overcrowded and poorly 
arranged. It is of interest to observe how the practical ends 
of life were supposably served by the introduction of mensura- 
tion, navigation, surveying, and bookkeeping: a side light upon 
the desirable occupations of the time. As for the standard of 
scholarship implied, the encylopedic nature of the course must 
have involved superficiality, even if certain of the text-books used 
had not been too advanced. Of these we may instance Whately's 
Logic and Wayland's Political Economy, Mental Philosophy and 
Moral Science. The work in English literature also differed 
widely from present methods, being simply a study of the 
history of literature without any reference to the classics them- 
selves. 

Four years after the graded course was adopted one of the 
schools tried the experiment of introducing the study of Ger- 
man into the six upper grades. Nearly all the non-English- 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 73 

speaking foreigners in the city were Germans and the board 
argued that if their language were taught in the public schools, 
they would be less likely to send their children to private or 
parochial schools, where the Americanizing process would be 

very slow. 

In 1866 the course of study was revised, the most important 
changes being in lower grades. The study of geography was 
introduced a grade earlier and the study of English history was 
omitted from the first grade. The oral instruction dropped the 
subject of state and city governments and institutions and more 
stories from ancient and modern history were introduced. 
These were chiefly biographical tales, a most heterogeneous col- 
lection, intended to present ideals rather than convey any idea 
of historical continuity. 

The revision of the high-school course was designed to lessen 
the amount of work required. This was accomplished in the 
general course by dropping arithmetic, grammar, geography, 
mensuration and surveying, and by rearranging the studies of 
the different years In the classical course arithmetic, grammar 
and geography were dropped. The normal course omitted his- 
tory and literature and to the study of pedagogy added practice 
in a school organized for the purpose. 

The study of German was definitely encouraged at this time 
by the adoption of the rule that the study could be introduced 
into at least one school in each district upon the petition of 150 

parents. 

Drawing was also favored by the appointment of a special 
teacher for the high school in 1868, and by attaching greater 
importance to the work in lower schools. The method followed 
was the copying of drawings in a graded series of drawing 

books. 

In 1869 a special teacher of voice culture was employed and 

a graded course in music was adopted. 

A second revision of the course of study made in 1872 reveals 
at least one important change, the introduction of script writing 
in the tenth or lowest grade. In the oral lessons hygiene, cleanli- 



74 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

ness, the care of clothing, etc., was somewhat more emphasized 
than before. 

A new departure was the formation of " high-school classes," 
intended as a substitute for the last year of the grammar school 
and the first year of the high school, for those desiring to 
shorten their course. The work included reading, spelling, 
composition, philosophy of arithmetic, algebra to quadratics, 
physical geography, outline of general history, national and 
state governments, the elements of physics and geology, music, 
drawing- and writing-. 

In the high school the general and classical courses were 
united, Greek being made an optional study. The classical 
students could finish in three years by omitting English litera- 
ture. An addition to the course was made by putting civil 
government into the last year. 

The normal course remained the same, except that literature 
was reintroduced with a direct study of Addison, Macaulay, 
Scott, Irving, Longfellow, Milton, and Shakespeare. 

1874 marks the date of the first school laboratory. It was 
a very simple one, located in the basement of the high school, 
but it meant the beginning of better science teaching. Scientific 
collections were being gradually accumulated and apparatus 
increased. There is a tradition, however, that "hands off" was 
the rule for the scholars ! In the grammar schools science was 
not faring so well, for the oral lessons had grown fewer and 
fewer without any substitute being found. 

A system of free-hand drawing was introduced at this time 
with great success. It was an advance on earlier methods, 
though still far below the standard reached in later years. The 
board was very anxious that the study should have a practical tend- 
ency and form to some degree a preparation for mechanical trades. 

The lower schools were regraded in 1875 m eight grades, 
numbered one to eight from the lowest. At the same time the 
Scripture reading, with which the schools had been opened every 
morning since 1841, was forbidden ( by the board at the instance 
of the Catholic clientage of the schools. 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHLCAGO 75 

During the same year the high-school course was again revised 
or rearranged and the "high-school classes" became " division 
high schools," with a two years' course. Some effort was made 
to introduce studies that would fit pupils for business life. 

1st year. Algebra, commercial arithmetic, physical geog- 
raphy, natural philosophy, general history, civil government. 

2d year. Geometry, trigonometry, chemistry, physiology, 
botany, rhetoric, English literature, bookkeeping. 

German, drawing, and music throughout the course, optional. 

In 1878 still another revision of the general course of study 
was adopted. For the primary and grammar grades this con- 
sisted chiefly in changes in method or in the amount of work 
done in a grade. Thus more attention was given to phonic 
analysis, punctuation, definitions, and to arithmetic and mathe- 
matical geography. The oral course was very much reduced. 
Most of the "conversations" were devoted to hygiene, physiol- 
ogy, and conduct, the latter including some references to city 
and national patriotism. 

In the high school two departments were again formed, the 
classical and general. The course in the former embraced only 
Latin, Greek, and mathematics, composition and declamation, 
with the option of music and drawing. The latter course laid 
more emphasis upon the study of English literature, and intro- 
duced laboratory work in chemistry. 

For several years there had been some question in the 
minds of the authorities regarding the high school and the 
position of special studies. A motion was made in 1876 to drop 
Greek from the course ; that is, to cease preparing students for 
college and devote the money to more general needs. At the 
same time a financial stress led to the reduction of salaries of 
special teachers and to discussion in regard to retaining special 
studies. In 1878 it was decided to place the first year of Ger- 
man in the fifth grade and to discontinue music and drawing in 
any room where less than twenty pupils desired them. Four 
years later a complete change of view led to a new ruling by 
which the study of music and drawing was made obligatory 



76 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

throughout the primary and grammar grades, but the opponents 
of Greek gained their point in 1883 an< ^ voted that the study be 
discontinued. Those already studying it were forced to attend 
the West Division High School in order to finish their work. 
(The division high schools enlarged their course to four years 
in 1 88 1.) The tendency of the board toward the "practical" 
in education was further expressed by the introduction of a 
simple form of manual training, for which a room was fitted up 
in the basement of the North Division High School. 

The high-school course was again revised in 1884-5 an d a 
four years' study of English authors made an integral part 
of it. Three languages were offered, Latin, German, and French; 
bookkeeping was made optional. 

For six years Greek was not taught ; then it was introduced 
again as an optional study. Three courses were offered in 1891, 
a college preparatory, teachers', and general course. The 
former added phvsiology, botany, history, and English literature 
to the regular work in Latin, Greek, and mathematics, and 
offered optional studies in German, French, or Spanish. The 
teachers' course corresponded to the general course with the 
addition of United States history, grammar, arithmetic, book- 
keeping, and the theory of teaching. 

From 1885 till 1893 special studies grew into ever greater 
prominence. The number of teachers increased considerably 
and the supervisors of each subject naturally strove to develop 
their departments to the extreme limit, while the board seemed 
unconscious of the changes. Clay modeling was introduced in 
1885; color work began to receive attention in the drawing 
classes ; Mr. Tomlins taught the Tonic-sol-fa system of reading 
music in the high school ; more time was given to physical cul- 
ture; and instruction in sewing was given in four grades. 

The work in manual training became so popular and success- 
ful that a second year's course in woodworking, modeling, etc., 
was added in 1887 and in 1890 the English High and Manual 
Training School was organized with a three years' course. In 
1 89 1 three ungraded rooms for truants were opened and instruc- 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 7 7 

tion given in sloyd. At the same time Mr. Crane fitted up a 
room and provided a teacher for classes in manual training at 
the Tilden School. Other classes were afterwards formed by 
the board. Kindergartens were adopted in 1892. 

In 1890 laboratories were fitted up in the South and West 
Division high schools and a year later in the Jefferson, Lake 
View and Northwest Division high schools. Marine specimens 
were also secured for the department of biology. 

After all this progress a reaction suddenly began, quite with- 
out warning so far as the records show. January 18, 1893, the 
Committee on School Management recommended that clay 
modeling be discontinued. The question of all special studies 
was then brought up for discussion and Mr. Badenoch made the 
sweeping motion that German, physical culture, sewing and 
drawing, and music in the primary grades, be discontinued. At 
the next meeting Mr. Revell moved as a substitute that paper 
cutting, pasting and color work be given up except in the 
kindergartens ; that sewing be dropped, and the study of tech- 
nical music except in the seventh and eighth grades, and that 
physical culture be taught by the regular teachers acting under 
four special teachers. Mrs. Flower moved that the number of 
special teachers be reduced. Upon these and similar motions 
an eager, often bitter discussion went on for weeks, participated 
in to an unusual extent by the public through petitions and the 
press. In a measure the board was influenced by economic 
considerations ; special studies were absorbing too large a pro- 
portion of the funds while primary education for the masses was 
still impossible, but in the main the question turned upon the 
intrinsic value of the studies. In many minds they were con- 
demned without a hearing by the name " fad," and then no 
argument from pedagogy or psychology could be received. 
From the debates it was evident that some of the board were 
unable to distinguish between the pedagogical principles for 
which these studies stood and excessive attention to unessential 
application of these principles. For a time it looked as if the 
course would be limited to the bare fundamentals, but slowly 



78 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

compromises were agreed upon. The first was expressed in the 
vote of April 26, when German was removed from the primary 
grades. The conclusion was reached May 10. Clay modeling 
was dropped from all but the kindergartens and deaf-mute 
schools ; physical culture was to be taught by the regular 
teachers with one special teacher for each district and a super- 
visor. Drawing was not introduced till the second grade, color 
till the fourth. Pasting and folding was dropped, and the time 
devoted to drawing ift the second and third grades reduced. 
One supervisor for each district and a superintendent were to 
constitute the special teachers. A uniform graded course in 
singing was decided upon with no technical work in the first two 
grades. The teaching force was to include a supervisor, and 
special teacher for each district, for the five lower grades, a 
supervisor and four special teachers for the upper grades. Sew- 
ing was discontinued. 

These changes rendered necessary a revision of the course of 
study which was adopted in 1894. A comparison of this with 
the first course introduced by Mr. Wells in 1861 reveals the 
extent of educational conservatism at the same time that it jus- 
tifies the claim of Mr. Wells as an advanced educator. In gen- 
eral there is a remarkable agreement between the two courses in 
the arrangement of studies and the amount of work assigned to 
different grades. Grammar and history text-books are intro- 
duced at the same point, geography one grade earlier in the last 
course ; English history is restored to the highest grammar grade 
after having been omitted for many years. The old course in 
"oral instruction" is revived in spirit in the "nature study," 
whose avowed object, to "assist in breaking down the unnatural 
barriers which the artificial environments of city life have 
built up between the child and nature, and to recognize the 
originality and individuality so valuable to the citizen," indicates 
the deeper insight which teachers have gained regarding the 
meaning of such work. The real difference between the two 
courses lies in the greater richness of the latter. Thus the work 
in mathematics now introduces the principles of geometry and 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 79 

algebra to make clearer the principles of arithmetic ; reading is 
connected with history and geography by the use of supplemen- 
tary readers ; and drawing aims to lead to manual training, 
appreciation of the beautiful and illustration of history and lit- 
erature. The study of civic life is not more emphasized now 
than then, though a text-book is used instead of oral instruction. 
The study of history, chiefly of the United States, is given larger 
place through the entire course by the aid of stories and supple- 
mentary readers employed from the first to the eighth grade. 
One idea, however, cannot be found in the original course, that 
of teaching literature and myths. This is now the subject of 
conscious thought and includes the repetition of myths and folk 
stories, memorizing selections from American authors, and read- 
ing classic literature. 

A new course of college-preparatory work requiring six years 
for its completion was arranged in 1894. This places the first 
study of Latin in the seventh grade, algebra and geometry in 
the eighth grade, but corresponds otherwise to the regular 
course. 

The high-school courses number three, the general and col- 
lege preparatory, covering four years, and that of the English 
high and manual training school, covering three years. The 
first two have not been materially changed by successive 
revisions, except in the added emphasis placed upon the study 
of English and in the reduction in the number of required studies 
so as to make greater thoroughness possible. The manual train- 
ing school course offers no foreign language except French, but 
includes algebra, geometry, physics, chemistry, biology, history, 
civil government, political economy, bookkeeping, shorthand, 
type writing and English, in addition to the work in wood turn- 
ing, blacksmithing and the machine shop. 

It is evident that the nominal progress of Chicago school 
programs throughout the thirty years was but slight. Indeed at 
certain periods there was decided retrogression, as when Greek 
was dropped from the curriculum in 1884, and during the twenty 
years when science teaching was almost unknown in the primary 



So THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

and grammar grades. The true progress has been in connection 
with the content of the courses and methods of instruction. The 
"American idea" that education is designed to train up citizens, 
has been repeated over and over without much definiteness of 
meaning. It has been fixed only in form, the content has 
varied. A knowledge of United States history and the English 
language has always been implied, with, of late years, a slight 
concession to the value of patriotic sentiment as awakened by 
the national flag and by the celebration of historic anniversaries. 
The relation of the child to the social environment in which he 
will live as a citizen, the forms of industrial organization, the 
significance of local political divisions and activities, the resources 
and needs of the municipality — such facts have at no time 
entered positively into the conception of "training for citizen- 
ship." 

Along with the conventional belief has gone a more or less 
vague idea that education has some reference to the child him- 
self. From the view that he needed to be given a certain num- 
ber of facts in order to discipline his mind, gradually arose the 
thought of attractiveness, interest, as an element of class-room 
work, and of the correlation of studies to correspond to the syn- 
thesis of nature. The child's individuality became a recognized 
factor as psychology was better understood. 

In this phase of its history the Chicago school system has 
not pursued an isolated course ; it has responded to the influ- 
ences that have been dominant throughout the country, the 
degree to which it yielded being determined at each stage by 
the intelligence of its directors or the degree of influence pos- 
sessed by heads of departments. The general attitude of the 
board has always been the conservative one natural to a com- 
pany of men not specially trained for their duties and lacking a 
broad outlook upon the field in which they are engaged. For 
the most part the superintendents have failed to carry out any 
pronounced or radical views in the management of the schools, 
either because they lacked the power, or because they were con- 
tent to follow the lines already marked out. The supervisors of 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 81 

departments, being specialists, have been more apt to introduce 
innovations and assume advanced positions. This has been 
noticeably true in the department of drawing. In the course of 
study adopted in 1894 the influence of the reports of both the 
"Committee of Ten" and the "Committee of Fifteen" was 
acknowledged. 



PART II. 



STRUCTURE AND FUNCTIONS OF THE SCHOOL SYSTEM 



8^ 



CHAPTER I. 

STRUCTURE. 
ORGANS. 

Even a cursory survey of the public-school system shows 
that it is composed of parts, each more or less highly organ- 
ized and sustaining relations of interdependence. A closer analy- 
sis enables us to group these organs according as their functions 
are administrative or purely educational. On the one side are 
city council and the Board of Education ; on the other, the 
schools of different types. The council with the mayor occupy 
chronologically the first place in the system. The mayor 
appoints the board, with the consent of the council, and thus 
indirectly determines the status of the schools. The council 
makes the appropriations of taxes which form the main support 
of the schools, reserving the school money as a special fund in 
the hands of the city treasurer, and acts upon the board's recom- 
mendations for the erection of buildings and the purchase of 
sites. It is thus possible for the council to favor or retard the 
growth of the system according as its policy is generous or nig- 
gardly, honest or dishonest, and its sympathy with the board 
strong or weak. 

The board-is the chief executive organ of the educational sys- 
tem. It consists of twenty-one members, one of whom is chosen 
president, with, however, no authority other than that of a presid- 
ing officer. The work of the board, the management of the 
school property and the organization and care of the schools is 
chiefly performed through committees, of which there are fifteen. 
These are the committees on Finance, School Fund Property, 
Special Funds, Buildings and Grounds, Janitors and Supplies, 
Judiciary, having special reference to the board's first function ; 
and those on School Management, High Schools, College Pre- 

85 



86 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

paratory Schools, English High and Manual Training School, 
Drawing, Music, German, Physical Culture, and Compulsory 
Education, having reference to the second function. The divi- 
sion of labor between these committees is not defined with 
exactness and the value of such minute division without any real 
center of control is open to grave criticism. This great fault in 
the organization of the board stands out with especial promi- 
nence in the administration of financial interests. Committees 
are very useful for deliberation, but they are very ineffective for 
execution, and to divide the business among six different com- 
mittees each without a responsible head is to sacrifice economy 
of effort and, undoubtedly, of money. The proposal to organ- 
ize the business as a mercantile company would do, and employ 
a responsible manager has been repeatedly urged without effect. 
Committees are still at work. Theoretically the action of the 
entire board is necessary to authorize the procedure of a com- 
mittee, but practically the assent of the board is a matter of 
course and the committees act independently. Within the past 
few months, 1895-6, the demand of a new member of the board 
that all committee reports be read in full before the board voted 
upon them, revealed the fact that the board had been content to 
hear only the title of a report, a policy certainly foreign to intel- 
ligent and business-like management. The committee system is 
weak enough at best without adding secrecy and its suggestions 
of crooked dealings to its faults. 

The office employes form an unofficial extension of the 
board, exercising often considerable influence. They include 
the secretary of the board, attorney, auditor, architect, school 
agent, business manager (a subordinate officer), chief engineer, 
superintendent of supplies, and three assistants. 

The schools organized and managed by the board may be 
considered in three classes. In the first group are the three 
regular forms, the primary, grammar, and high schools. These 
number 223 ; fourteen are high schools. They form a connected, 
graded series. The primary and grammar schools have each 
four grades. The high schools are, with one exception, coeduca- 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 87 

tional schools of the mixed type, offering both a general and a 
college preparatory course. The exception is the English high 
and manual training school, whose name indicates its char- 
acter. 

In the second group are the special schools, the thirty-seven 
kindergartens, four schools for deaf mutes, fifty-one evening 
schools, and the schools at the Bridewell and the Waifs' Mis- 
sion. Logically the kindergartens form part of the regular 
series, preceding the primary school, but their number is still so 
limited that they must be considered exceptional. The schools 
for the deaf are at present day schools, but the board is strongly 
urged to establish a central school with dormitories where the 
pupils can be kept from Monday until Friday. Many of the 
children who should be reached live at such a distance from the 
schools that the item of car fare becomes a considerable one 
with the poor parents, and the attendance is much smaller than 
it should be. There are also many Chicago children in the 
Jacksonville School whose parents would be glad to have them 
at home part of the time if they could be satisfactorily taught 
in the city. An increased attendance would also sensibly dimin- 
ish the cost of the schools. 

The evening schools are designed to reach children who work 
during the day and youths who desire to continue their training 
for a business life. The pupils are chiefly foreigners anxious to 
learn English and working boys and girls who left school early 
and come back for stenography, bookkeeping, mechanical draw- 
ing, etc. High-school classes meet the needs of the latter class, 
and are more successful than the lower schools because the 
attendance is more regular. 

The two institutional schools are ungraded as the shifting 
attendance demands. No peculiar adaptation is made to the 
character of the pupils, but manual training is to be given at the 
Bridewell, where the school will serve some of the purposes of a 
truant school. 

The third group of schools includes the training class # and 
the normal school. The former, having been organized in lieu 



88 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

of a normal school, seems to have no raison d'etre now that the 
county school with its fine record has been incorporated into 
the city system. 

PROPERTY AND FINANCIAL SUPPORT. 

In a fundamental analysis the school system, like all other 
societary institutions, is seen to be composed of two elements, 
an impersonal and a personal, or property and persons. The 
property of the Chicago schools may be put under two heads, 
the land, buildings, and furniture used for the schools, and the 
so-called "school-fund property," real estate, and securities, 
from which a portion of the school revenue is derived. 

The value of the former is estimated (1896) at $18,163,- 
979.50. Of this $4,530,647.50 is the value of lots and $13,633,- 
332 that of buildings and furniture. The number of school 
buildings is 295. In addition 296 rooms are rented. The aver- 
age value of buildings and furniture is $46,214.68. The total 
number of sittings furnished is 202,231. This is more than 
the average daily attendance, 165,569, but less than the total 
enrollment, 213,825. Moreover the relations of demand and 
supply are not accurately expressed by the mere statistics, since 
many buildings in closely built wards like the nineteenth are seri- 
ously overcrowded while others in outlying districts have unoccu- 
pied seats. Add to this the fact that 13,507 children are in 
rented rooms, seldom if ever designed for school uses, and that 
15,036 can attend but half a day, and it becomes evident that 
accommodations are by no means adequate. If it is further 
considered that the compulsory-education law is not yet 
enforced, and that when it is the school population will make 
still greater demands, the need of generous provision for the 
future is unmistakable. 

Next in importance to the number of accommodations is 
their quality, and here the data given must be fragmentary, 
results obtained from a partial examination made by educational 
committees of the Civic Federation, personal observations, and 
facts drawn from the board's annual reports. The oldest school 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 89 

building was erected in 1846; five were built between 1856 and 
i860; six between 1865 and 1870 ; forty-eight between 1870 and 
1880. Or, expressed differently, fifty are over 20 years old, and 
these include such schools as the Jones, Skinner, and Newberry, 
with over 1000 pupils each. It is of course true that repairs and 
improvements have been made upon these old buildings, but it is 
impossible to secure the conditions considered necessary by pres- 
ent standards of sanitary construction without a practical rebuild- 
ing. The investigations referred to showed that defects of light- 
ing, ventilation, and plumbing were only too frequent. The low 
standard for lighting at the time the building was erected often 
explained the first defect. In other buildings, as at the Farren, the 
attempt to prevent crosslights had led to covering windows on 
one side of the room, thus reducing what was even at first an 
inadequate amount of light. In still other cases buildings have 
been erected so close to the school as to effectively screen many 
of the rooms. 

Faulty systems of ventilation, or entire lack of system, was 
found to be a common complaint. Criticism of the plumbing 
often resolved itself into criticism of the janitor service instead, 
for in justice to the board it should be said that it has made a 
special effort to secure good plumbing. 

A fourth defect in many of the older schools is lack of fire 
protection. Too narrow stairways, not fireproof, and lack or 
inefficiency of fire escapes constitute a menace whose execution 
only singularly good fortune has prevented. 

All of these criticisms apply only to the older buildings, 
those erected before 1886, and not of course to all of them. 
Buildings of recent construction conform to much higher 
standards. Those built since 1890 embody the best sanitary 
knowledge of the time. In one particular, however, the great 
majority of schools, both new and old, fail to realize the ideal : 
they have no adequate provision for playgrounds or gymna- 
siums. It is still an open question whether these should be pro- 
vided by the board in connection with schoolhouses, or by the 
city in the form of small parks, but there is no question that the 



9° THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

children ought not to be driven onto the streets to find room 
for games and romps. 

The schoolhouses are as a rule brick buildings of the factory 
style of architecture, averaging three stories in height. In the 
common type there is a hall running through the center, with 
four or six rooms opening from it, and a stairway at one or both 
ends. A very few of the most recent buildings have varied the 
type, and shown the possibility of combining beauty and utility. 
With inconsiderable exceptions the buildings are heated by 
steam or furnaces. The rooms are of the prescribed rectangular 
shape, with tinted walls and blackboards around at least two 
sides. In most of the rooms the number of seats is fifty-four; 
a very few new schools have but forty-eight, and a few old 
buildings have sixty-three. The seats in a room are of uniform 
size, the economic argument of increased cost opposing all 
hygenic arguments in favor of graded or adaptable seats fitted 
to the individual pupil. 

Nearly all schools have something in the way of cabinets, 
collections made by the scholars or given by friends. A smaller 
number possess libraries. A room without plants is the excep- 
tion, and at least one large school has outdoor garden plots for 
the children. Aside from the presence of plants the aesthetic 
element is slightly regarded in school furnishings. Much of the 
smaller decorative staff work from the World's Fair was dis- 
tributed among' the schools, but it was intended to serve rather 
as drawing models than as decorations of the rooms. Indeed, 
the only common form of art that the rooms possess is the 
photograph. Portraits of Washington, Lincoln, Longfellow, and 
Whittier seem to be the favorites. During the last year a " Public 
School Art Society " has been formed, by the efforts of Miss Starr, 
of Hull House, which proposes to give every school copies of fine 
pictures, following the example of the similar society in Man- 
chester, England. If the society is supported as earnestly as 
its prototype, a few years may see a great change in the appear- 
ance of the schools. At present cleanliness is the only claim to 
beauty in most of them. 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 91 

The possession of scientific apparatus is naturally confined 
to the high schools, unless we include under that head the tools 
and benches for manual training of a simple sort owned by twelve 
grammar schools. The high -school laboratories are well 
equipped for physical, chemical, and biological study. The high 
schools also own libraries of considerable value. 

Turning now to the other form of school property, that from 
which revenue is derived, it is found to consist of the "school 
fund" derived from the sale of school lands, the "wharfing lot 
fund," and the rentals of real estate, and of real estate which 
includes the residue of the original school section and lands 
acquired by annexation and by the foreclosure of mortgages. 
The principal of the school fund amounted, June 30, 1896, to 
S979.789.19. Interest on investments was $51,465.80. The 
school-fund property was appraised at $7,285,233. The rentals 
were $524,037. The support of the schools is derived from the 
interest on the fund and the rentals, supplemented by state and 
city taxes. The former revenue is devoted wholly to the pay- 
ment of salaries, the latter is divided between salaries and build- 
ings, sites, etc., in the proportion of 2 to 3. 

The state dividend for 1895-6 amounted to $334,849.10. 
The total expenditures for the year was $7,328,531.68. Of this 
$5,145,671.78 came from city taxes. The city is allowed to levy 
a school tax of 5 per cent., but this maximum has never been 
reached. 

Among the principal items of expenditure for 1895-6 were: 
Teachers' salaries, primary and grammar schools, - §3,203,925.03 
Teachers' salaries, high schools and special studies, 639,579.66 

New school buildings, ------ 1,144,994.97 

New school sites, - - 183,987.50 

Repairs, -------- 277,125.20 

Evening schools, ----- 111,909.29 

Drawing teachers' salaries, - - - - 16,978.50 

Music teachers' salaries, ----- 22,642.50 

German teachers' salaries, ----- 132,330.42 

Kindergarten teachers' salaries, - - - 24,270.50 

Compulsory education, ------ 15,606.20 

Janitors and engineers, ----- 373,221.85 



92 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

The board also controls some fifteen special funds, gifts to 
different schools or grades, most of them to provide text-books 
for poor children, a few for prizes or apparatus. These funds 
amount to $54,150, of the interest on which there was expended 
in 1895-6 $3,33 2 -93- 

As the list shows nearly half of the total expenditure is for 
salaries, a little further analysis of these is therefore of interest. 
The lowest paid position in the schools is that of assistant in the 
primary schools, $450 a year. This salary is gradually increased 
until after five years it reaches $775. In the grammar school 
the new teacher begins with $450 and receives a gradual increase 
up to $800 after five years. Head assistants receive $850. 
Principals, whose salaries are graded by the size of the school, 
and high-school teachers, receive from $1000 to $2500; assist- 
ant superintendents, $4000. The first impression is that large 
salaries are paid, but the fatal average proves that the officers 
are very few in comparison with the rank and file. Including 
the superintendents the average is $821.62. The great majority 
of the teachers are in the grammar and primary grades, 4257 
out of 4668. Their average salary is $750.27. In this connec- 
tion it is instructive to observe that the average cost of engineer 
and janitor's service for the 295 buildings is $1265.83 ; an inter- 
esting showing of the relative value of the professions in terms 
of money. It is true that if the comparison of salaries be made 
with those of stenographers, clerks, bookkeepers and skilled 
mechanics, as the Committee on Finance makes it, on the basis 
of hours of class-room work a year, the result is not unfavorable 
for the schools. The committee considers the case of a girl just 
graduated from the high school, who, after six months in the 
training class, obtains a position in school at $450 a year. 
"Where," they ask, " can a young girl earn so much the first 
year and only work five hours a day for 200 days?" The com- 
mittee, however, fails to ask whether it is possible to secure high- 
grade service for such salaries. If the growing conviction among 
educators be true, that the primary teacher has the most influ- 
ential and responsible position, when will it be possible to secure 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 93 

professional service of the required standard if the economic 
rewards remain at such a low figure? Only those who have had 
little training can afford to do the work at present. 

There is practically no competition between men and women 
except as principals of grammar schools and high-school assist- 
ants. In the former group there is no discrimination in salaries 
on the ground of sex. Among the latter it is understood that 
the highest paid positions are given only to men. One liberal- 
minded member of the board frankly said, "It is out of the 
question at present to expect anything different." 

The final item to be given is the total cost of the schools per 
pupil. Calculated upon the total enrollment this was, in 1895-6, 
$20.68 ; upon the average daily membership, $25.12; upon the 
average daily attendance, $26.95. For the high schools the 
average cost per pupil was $58.68. 

PERSONS. 

The second fundamental element in the school system is that 
of persons. These may be divided into officers, teachers and 
pupils, though this classification does not correspond to their 
relations in the different organs. Passing by the members of the 
council, the first group consists of the mayor and the members 
of the Board of Education, twenty-one in number. The latter 
are appointed by the mayor for a term of three years, one-third 
every year. The consent of the council is merely formal, so 
that the responsibility rests with the mayor. The members of 
the board are unpaid, but as the managers of over $7,000,000 
and the appointers of over 4000 teachers they wield great influ- 
ence, and positions upon the board are not infrequently the 
objects of much political wire-pulling. The mayor's selection 
is usually of average citizens from divers parts of the city, repre- 
senting different classes of the population. The endeavor seems 
to be to represent as many social elements as possible, rather 
than to secure persons whose business ability or experience in 
educational work qualify them to discharge the duties of the 
office. It is one of the fallacies of democracy to expect that 



94 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

the sum of many mediocre opinions and plans will equal the 
wisdom of the best minds. 

The board directs the general policy of the schools, their 
discipline and course of study, and appoints all of the teachers. 
This latter office might well be left with the superintendent, who 
is held largely responsible for the efficiency of the schools, and 
yet is unable to select the working force. The board receives 
suggestions from the superintendent for a few appointments, but 
in too many instances it is not free from the suspicion of 
favoritism. 

Among the employes of the board that have been named 
before, two deserve special mention, because of the power they 
possess to decide under what physical conditions the school 
work shall be performed. It rests with the architect and chief 
engineer to definitely fix the standard of healthfulness for the 
buildings in which 200,000 children spend the greater part of 
the day for ten months of the year. The Committee on Build- 
ings only pass upon the plans presented to them, and can lay no 
claim to expert knowledge. 

Besides the teachers there are other appointees of the board. 
In 1895-6 these were a superintendent of schools, an assistant 
superintendent of high schools, eight general assistants, each in 
charge of a district or group of schools, and eight special super- 
intendents or supervisors — one of evening schools, one of com- 
pulsory education, two of singing, two of drawing, one of 
modern languages, and one of physical culture. The superin- 
tendent has the supervision of all the schools, including both 
the work done and the equipment of apparatus and libraries. 
He has power to grant temporary leave of absence to teachers, 
assign them to schools, and suspend pupils with the consent of 
the board. The examination and promotion of teachers, the 
plan of discipline, and the examination of candidates for posi- 
tions as teachers also rests with him. In actual practice the 
duties are shared by the assistant superintendents, who also con- 
duct institutes for teachers. The tone of education depends 
upon the character of the superintendent in large measure. He 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 95 

can introduce his teachers to new methods and broader views 
and encourage them to express their individuality in their work, 
or can develop the school system into a machine where all the 
work is a routine without spontaneity, one school the exact copy 
of another. In Chicago a middle course has been followed. The 
superintendent has neither made the schools noted for peculiar 
methods, like those of Ouincy, or freedom of development, like 
those of Minneapolis, nor has he clung to inflexible regulations. 
"Progressive conservatism" has been the aim. 

The official life of the superintendents has been unfortunately 
brief. Seven years and a half was the average term of those who 
preceded Mr. Lane. He was appointed in 1890. Such terms 
are too short for the most efficient service. Scarcely has an 
officer obtained a thorough knowledge of the conditions under 
which the work is to be done, the personnel of the teaching 
force, the peculiar problems afforded by special classes of schol- 
ars, the material resources at command, and commenced to work 
out his own ideas, when he is removed from office, or some 
counter attraction leads him to resign. Were he given more 
freedom of action, the selection of his colaborers, and greater 
influence in the determination of courses of study, the office 
would become more attractive to educators of strong characters 
and independent views, who would be ready to give their life 
effort to it. The position should draw large men as powerfully 
as any college presidency. Certainly its possible range of influ- 
ence is quite as great. It is conceivable that the future char- 
acter of the city itself, its ideals, opinions, motives, could be 
largely shaped by the policy outlined by the superintendent of 
schools. In actual fact, however, the position is only a restricted 
one, with conventional duties. 

The second group of persons in the school system is com- 
posed of the teachers. These numbered in 1895-6 4668, divided 
thus in positions and sex : 



96 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 



Principals 


Assistants 




High 
Schools 


Gr. and 
Primary 


High 
Schools 


Grammar & 
Primary 


Manual Deaf- 
Train'g Mute 


Kinder- 
garten 


Normal 


Special 


Male 

Female 


M 


101 

105 


114 
130 


79 
3958 


13 
I 


2 

8 


72 


8 
15 


25 
23 



Total, M., 115 ; F., 105. M., 241 ; F., 4207. 

Grand Total, M., 356; F., 4312. 

As the rules of the board show, teachers of experience or 
college graduates may receive teachers' certificates without 
examination, but the general method of selecting teachers is by 
examinations, which are usually held by the superintendents 
twice a year. Candidates for membership in the training class, 
who must be residents of the city and have completed a course of 
study equal to that of the high school, are examined in arith- 
metic, algebra to quadratics, general geography with physical 
geography, United States and modern European history, ele- 
mentary botany, zoology, astronomy, physiology, natural phi- 
losophy, English language and literature, drawing, and vocal 
music. But a large loophole for escape from this ordeal of 
catechism has been opened for two or three years by the provi- 
sion that students who have stood 90 per cent, or over during 
their entire high-school course can enter the class without fur- 
ther tests. This provision is said by some high-school teachers 
to lead to cheating rather than to extraordinary efforts. 

Applicants for assistants' positions in primary and grammar 
grades must be graduates of the training class, college gradu- 
ates, or teachers of four years' experience. The two latter 
classes are examined in the same subjects as those entering the 
training class, with the addition of the theory of teaching. 

Candidates for high-school positions are all examined in 
English, composition, and psychology, but they may select one 
of two groups of subjects for the main portion of the examina- 
tion. From the first group they may select a major subject, 
equivalent to a college course in that subject, and two minors. 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 97 

If Latin is a major, Greek must be one of the minors. If any 
other subject is a major, Latin must be a minor. The group 
includes Latin, Greek, English literature, history, civics, and 
political economy. If selection is made from the second group, 
one major, not German or French, and three minors must be 
chosen. If mathematics is a major, physics must be a minor, or 
vice versa. The subjects of the second group are mathematics, 
physics, chemistry, biology, geology and astronomy, French, 
German. Laboratory examinations are required in physics, 
chemistry, and biology when they are majors. 

Candidates desiring to teach German or French are examined 
in composition and psychology in addition to an oral and writ- 
ten examination in the language chosen. 

These specialized examinations for high-school teachers have 
only been given for two or three years. Previous to their intro- 
duction the unhappy candidates were subjected to a heavy but 
scattering fire of questions on every subject in the curriculum ; 
questions requiring a fortunate trick of memory rather than the 
possession of genuine knowledge or grasp of a subject. It was 
not at all uncommon for a specialist of experience in the classics 
to be rejected because he knew little of astronomy or chemistry, 
or for a mathematician to fail in history, and yet the school 
work was almost wholly specialized and no teacher was in prac- 
tice required to be an encyclopedia. 

The high-school teachers are with few exceptions college 
graduates ; the grammar and primary school teachers with 
equally few exceptions have had only a high-school course. 
Most of them are graduates of the city schools. From 1876 to 
1896 there was no normal school, and the training class was not 
organized until 1892. Excluding the high school and special 
teachers and those who, having taught over twenty years, may 
have attended the old normal school, there remains over 3000 
who have gone directly from the high school to the teacher's 
desk, with perhaps a short probation as "cadets" or assistants. 
It is true that the more ambitious receive valuable help from the 
institutes held by superintendents and supervisors of special 



9 8 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

studies and may train themselves into most capable teachers, 
but they work at a great disadvantage ; while the unambitious 
improve only in superficial methods sufficiently to enable them to 
retain their positions. Faithful and conscientious the great body 
of teachers may be, but they lack the breadth of culture and 
power born of wide professional training which must be secured 
if the common schools are to realize their ideal of efficiency. 
The best of the high schools cannot give either the maturity of 
mind, the social wisdom, or the knowledge of child nature which 
society must soon demand of its teachers. 

At present there are not lacking teachers whose inability to 
speak good English and behave with courtesy arouses instant crit- 
icism. Why are they, or others who do not always deem it neces- 
sary to speak the truth to their pupils, retained in their positions ? 
Such failings are condemned even by present standards, but it 
is agreed that the tenure of office in Chicago schools is peculiarly 
secure. A teacher is almost never removed save on a well- 
proved charge of a grave moral character. The civil-service 
clause in the recent pension bill simply embodies what has been 
the principle of action for many years. Two hundred and 
twenty-five teachers have served over twenty years in Chicago ; 
twenty-six have taught over thirty years. 

Security of position is of course a most desirable thing if the 
work of teaching is to be made something more than a stepping- 
stone to other avocations, but if civil-service rules do not pro- 
vide, in practice, for the dismissal of the inefficient their value is 
reduced by half. A different norm of judgment by which to 
estimate a teacher's success than the possession of certain items 
of information or even the ability to pass a class from one grade 
to another would cause more changes in the ranks of teachers 
than are at all frequent now. 

The third and largest group of persons in the school system 
is that of pupils. The total enrollment for 1895-6 was 213,825 ; 
the average daily enrollment, 177,710; the average daily attend- 
ance, 165,569. The total enrollment in the primary department 
was 149,642; in the grammar department, 55,482; in the high 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CLJICAGO 99 

schools, 8609. There were also 3221 in kindergartens and 15,- 
793 in evening schools. The city census for 1896 shows the 
population of school age as 451,597. Parochial and private 
schools received 68,883 or - these. Over 12,000 under sixteen 
years of age were at work. Between the ages of seven and 
fourteen it is calculated that nearly 7000 are out of school, 
despite the labor law which forbids the employment of children 
under fourteen in factories and shops, and the compulsory- 
education law which requires four months' attendance at school 
during the year. Unfortunately the former law does not apply 
to mercantile establishments or to the occupations of bootblacks, 
newsboys, messengers, peddlers, etc., and the enforcement of 
the latter is discretionary with the board. Factory inspectors 
and truant officers accomplish something, but the latter can only 
use persuasion and so their power to accomplish the desired 
result is very limited. Both laws should be amended and special 
truant schools should be provided for such children as cannot 
now be kept in regular graded schools. Increased accommoda- 
tions of some sort are necessary in any case, since the total 
enrollment exceeds the seating capacity by 16,594. 

Of equal importance with the question of attendance is that 
of the length of time the pupils remain in school. It has been 
repeatedly said by officials and by the public that at least 70 
per cent, of the children never enter the fifth grade and that 
the average length of their school life is three years. In his 
last two reports Superintendent Lane takes occasion to dispute 
these statements by a study of the statistics for each grade since 
1889-90, when there was an abnormal increase of scholars on 
account of annexation. Assuming an annual promotion for all 
and that no additions by increase of population were made 
except in the first grade, he compares the numbers in each grade 
with the number in the first grade in 1889-90 and reaches the 
conclusion that 89 per cent, remained in school two years, 80 
per cent, three years, 65 per cent, four years, 61 per cent, five 
years, 48 per cent, six years, and 37.1 percent, seven years. 
Beginning with the first grade of 1 890-1, 92.3 per cent, remained 



ioo THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

two years, 85 per cent, three years, 76.9 per cent, four years, 
70.7 per cent, five years, 52 per cent, six years. That is, between 
60 per cent, and 70 per cent, enter the fifth grade and about 
one-half remain in school six years. 

Mr. Lane's initial assumptions are open to such grave criti- 
cism as invalidates his whole proof, but, granting for argument's 
sake that his conclusions are substantially correct and that the 
term of school life is longer than is generally supposed, even 
then according to his own figures from 25 to 35 per cent, of the 
scholars fall out at the end of the third grade. About 9000 
children who were in the first grade in 1895-6 will drop out 
before 1898 and 18,000 before 1901. Under such circumstances 
there are but two conceivable methods of reform, either to 
improve the course of study or to lengthen the school life. 
Whether the first is desirable or not need not be discussed at 
this point, for however perfect the curriculum and instruction 
may be, children at the age of nine or even twelve are not yet 
mature enough to have completed the training which the state 
should give its citizens. This is true of even the children of 
native-born Americans, but it becomes doubly true when we 
remember that over 80,000 of the children are foreign born. 
Many of them speak little or no English and understand nothing 
of our institutions or ideas. To assimilate such alien elements 
eight years of school life is surely none too long. A radical com- 
pulsory-education law which can be enforced, a broader labor law 
applying to all classes of labor, some form of ungraded rooms 
or truant schools, with possibly some state aid for the support 
of children whose parents cannot afford to lose their wages — 
these are insistent needs. 

REGULATION OF THE SYSTEM. 

As governors and governed the members of the school sys- 
tem are arranged in a hierarchical series. At the top stands the 
state legislature which sanctions the system, defines its general 
form of organization, and describes the duties of the Board of 
Education. The citv council occupies an intermediate position 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 101 

of authority through its appointment of the board, its control 
of taxes, and its veto power in the purchase of land and the 
erection of buildings. The board is the direct source of school 
government, but it delegates the formulation and execution of 
the details to the superintendents, who regulate the school rou- 
tine carried out by principals and teachers. The teachers are 
the schoolroom authorities, with principals and district superin- 
tendents as courts of appeal. 

The basis on which the schools legally rest is the state con- 
stitution of 1870. This declares that "its General Assembly 
shall provide a thorough and efficient system of free schools 
whereby all children of the state may receive a good common- 
school education." The constitution specifies further that the 
trust of school property shall be faithfully kept, that public 
money shall not be given to sectarian schools, and that no 
teacher or school officers shall be interested in the sale of school 
books or furniture. 

The details of organization are found in the law which went 
into force July 1, 1891. According to this the Board of Educa- 
tion consists of twenty-one members appointed by the mayor, 
by and with the consent of the council. The term of office is 
three years. Five years' residence in the city qualifies a person 
for membership. The board appoints its own president, from 
its members, a secretary, and office employes. It must keep 
records and prepare an annual report. It has power, with the 
consent of the council, to erect, purchase, and repair buildings, 
to buy or lease sites, to issue bonds for these purposes and pro- 
vide for their payment, and to borrow money for school pur- 
poses on the credit of the city. 

It has power to furnish, support, and establish schools, to 
hire buildings or rooms for itself and schools, to employ teachers 
and fix salaries, to prescribe books, to form school districts, to 
expel pupils, to dismiss or remove teachers, to apportion teachers 
to schools, to lease school property and to loan the school fund. 

Its duties are to superintend the schools, to examine candi- 
dates for teachers, and grant certificates, to establish by-laws for 



102 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

the government and discipline of the schools, to determine the 
number and classification of teachers and fix salaries, to take 
charge of the buildings and grounds and keep them in good 
condition, to provide fuel and other necessaries, to prescribe 
courses and methods of instruction and discipline and see that 
they are enforced, to prescribe studies, books, and apparatus, to 
report to the council regarding the schools and the school fund 
and recommend new buildings and districts, to prepare an annual 
report giving receipts and expenditures, and to communicate 
information to the council as requested. 

The board can exercise no power except at regular meetings. 

All conveyances of real estate must be made to the city in 
trust for the use of schools, and no sale of real estate or inter- 
est therein used for school purposes, or held in trust for schools 
can be made except by the city council upon the written request 
of the board. 

All moneys raised by taxation for school purposes or received from the 
state common-school fund, or from any other sources for school purposes, 
shall be held by the city treasurer as a special fund for school purposes sub- 
ject to the order of the Board of Education upon warrants to be counter- 
signed by the mayor and city clerk. 

The board cannot increase expenditures above the state fund, 
the rent of school land, and taxes. 

The city can exercise no powers given to the board. 

The city may levy a school tax of not more than 2 per cent, 
for educational, 3 per cent, for building purposes, on property 
according to the last assessment for state and county taxes. 

The common-school fund of the state includes a tax of two 
mills on each dollar's valuation of property in the state annually ; 
the interest less one-sixth on the school fund proper, i. c, 3 
per cent, on the sale of the state public lands ; and interest on 
the surplus revenue distributed by act of Congress and made 
part of the common-school fund by act of the legislature, March 
4, 1837. 

The common-school fund is to be divided according to the 
number of children in each county. 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 103 

In addition to this general law there are other special acts of 
different dates which are still in force. These include the law of 
March 28, 1874, requiring that the doors of public buildings shall 
open outward ; that of July 1, 1889, requiring temperance instruc- 
tion in the schools ; that of June 17, 1893, on compulsory educa- 
tion ; that of April 17, 1895, authorizing the support of kinder- 
gartens; and the pension bill of May 31, 1895. 

The city ordinances relating to the schools which are still in 
force are but two. The first requires that all children whether 
in public or private schools have a certificate of vaccination ; 
the second vaguely demands of school authorities that they do 
not neglect any proper care of the health of teachers and pupils. 

The regulations of the board, aside from the rules of order 
for business meetings, cover a variety of subjects. 

The school year shall consist of ten months of four weeks 
each, divided into three terms. 

There shall be exercises on the day before February 22 and 
May 30. 

The superintendent, assistant superintendents, principals, and 
teachers shall be chosen by ballot. 

The superintendent has the supervision of all schools, their 
equipment, apparatus, libraries, and of teachers and pupils. 
He has power to grant teachers temporary leave of absence, to 
suspend pupils subject to the advice of the Committee on 
School Management, and to make assignments of teachers. 

The foreign languages taught in the high schools shall be 
Latin, Greek, German, French or Spanish. There may be a 
scientific course in the high schools. 

There shall be a recess of fifteen minutes a day in the gram- 
mar schools. 

Six and one-half days' absence unexplained shall be reason 
for suspension of a pupil. 

Teachers of wide experience and college graduates of experi- 
ence maybe accepted as teachers without examination on recom- 
mendation of the superintendent, four assistant superintendents, 
and a majority of the board. 



104 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

School rooms shall be kept at a temperature of from 65 ° to 
70 F. 

No sectarian or partisan question shall be discussed in the 
schools. 

No teacher shall advise the purchase of any book not on the 
list of school books. 

Principals must see that the buildings are properly heated, 
ventilated, and cleaned. They shall not read to the school any 
advertisement or notice of any entertainment. They shall report 
to the assistant superintendent of their district. They shall meet 
the first Saturday of each month with the superintendent 
and assistant superintendents. They shall have charge of the 
drawing of books from the Public Library. 

Teachers shall watch the conduct and habits of pupils 
during recesses. There shall be no corporal punishment. 

Pupils must present certificates of vaccination, be cleanly, 
and free from contagious diseases. They may be excused from 
drawing, music, physical culture and German on the request of 
fifty parents. 

Books connected with studies can be drawn from the Public 
Library. 

Janitors shall keep the buildings clean. They shall "wash 
and scrub the floors, seats, etc., during vacations." 

The disconnected, fragmentary and negative character of 
these rules renders it difficult to gain any impression of the 
spirit which is actually manifested in the management of the 
schools. The prohibition of corporal punishment shows that 
discipline must be of the nature of appeals to reason, honor, 
shame or affection, but only a knowledge of individual teachers 
and principals could enable one to say what degree of self- 
government is sought or which form of appeal is most com- 
monly used. 

Attention should be given to the slight reference made to 
protection against disease and to the care of schoolhouses. 
It is fortunately the case that practice in both these matters far 
exceeds the precepts, but since there are rules it would be well 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 105 

to have them express a standard higher than the practice, rather 
than lower. 

Again, the regulations do not show to what extent the mech- 
anism of the system is considered important. It gives no evi- 
dence of the elaborate bookkeeping that each teacher finds 
necessary in making out the prescribed records. They do not 
indicate the minute rules that govern the order of class rooms, 
entrance to the buildings, etc. All of these things are forms 
made necessary by the size and number of the schools, the una- 
voidable means of securing an orderly procedure, yet in so large 
a system there is always danger that they may become too 
dominant, absorbing energy that might better be devoted to 
developing and increasing the school's spiritual forces. 

ASSOCIATIONS OF TEACHERS AND PUPILS. 

Aside from the groupings of persons into the fundamental 
organs of the school system there are other voluntary or semi- 
official associations of teachers and pupils which are more or 
less effective agencies for improving the system. The citations 
of the board's rules have shown that principals are required to 
meet monthly with the superintendents. These meetings con- 
sider subjects bearing upon every phase of school management, 
the help of prominent educators often being called for to stimu- 
late the discussion. The teachers of primary and grammar 
schools, too many to be gathered in one institute as formerly, 
are divided by grades or the locality of schools for instruction 
in one department of the work at a time, or for general talks by 
superintendents. Such institutes enable the teachers to learn 
the plans and methods of the supervisors and to come into closer 
touch with the school authorities, as well as to gain broader 
ideas of education and greater sympathy with one another. It is 
expected that teachers will always attend when summoned to 
these institutes, though the printed rules do not demand this. 

High-school teachers have an association which holds general 
meetings usually addressed by prominent teachers from colleges 
or universities, and monthly meetings for the instructors in 



106 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

similar studies. By these conferences of specialists greater uni- 
formity of method and an ever higher standard is being secured 
in the different departments. 

All of the teachers' meetings are, indeed, to be reckoned 
among the dynamic forces at work in the school system. 
Through them the highest thought on education may be brought 
as an inspiration and guide to teachers, who, as has been shown, 
have so largely missed opportunities for generous culture. 

The associations of pupils are chiefly confined to the high 
schools and are of two kinds, athletic and literary. The former 
can scarcely be said to command more than the negative approval 
of the school faculties, though they often quicken the spirit of 
school loyalty, but the latter are positively encouraged and their 
work is often recognized among the school exercises. Of the 
nine high schools which responded to questions upon this 
subject, the Calumet has one societv; the Englewood, two; the 
Manual Training School, none; the Hyde Park, one; the Lake, 
two; the Lake View, four; the North Division, one; the South 
Division, one; the West Division, one. Total, thirteen. Two 
of these are athletic, the others literary. The latter are gen- 
erally devoted to literary exercises and debates. Elaborate 
constitutions encourage parliamentary drill, and public oratorical 
contests are held between the different societies. The prin- 
cipals and many of the teachers attend the meetings, consid- 
ering them valuable adjuncts of the regular work. 

Only one organization is known to exist in the grammar 
schools, but that is most interesting in character. It is known 
as "The Home Improvement Club," and was founded by Miss 
Mary Jameson, one of the assistant supervisors of drawing, in 
1894, when the Civic Federation Council of the Thirty-Second 
Ward was making a special effort to secure cleanliness in that 
part of the city. Some of the older children in one of the 
schools became so much interested in the matter that they 
desired to join the federation. To meet this desire Miss Jame- 
son formed the club as a sort of junior federation, with a limited 
scope. The members take this formal pledge: "I promies 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHLCAGO 107 

faithfully to throw nothing into street or alley which may be 
burned, and to allow no one else to do the same if it can be pre- 
vented. I will try to improve my own home by burning all 
waste paper and rubbish, and for my own pleasure will add 
something to make my own dooryard look better, by planting 
flowers and taking good care of them." 

Occasionally meetings are held to discuss progress or consult 
about difficult questions, and short talks on suggested topics 
are given by a teacher. Fifteen chapters of the club had 
been formed before March 1896, with 571 members from six 
schools. The Doolittle, Springer, Haven, Webster, Forrestville, 
and Avondale draw most of their children from the homes of 
working people — the cottage on a small lot, so characteristic 
of Chicago. To stimulate the interest of the children, they 
were promised seeds for flower beds ; but even without this spur 
they were readily enlisted, and teachers reported visible results 
of their efforts in many neighborhoods. It is an experiment in 
practical good citizenship that deserves great encouragement. 
There is no reason why the club should not have members in 
every school, interposing a slight check to the prevalent Amer- 
ican tendency of outdoor untidiness. 



CHAPTER II. 

FUNCTIONS. 

Hitherto we have considered the structure of the school sys- 
tem, its parts, and their relations to one another. The functions 
of individuals have also been defined, but the activities of the 
system as a whole have only been referred to incidentally. What 
is the raison d'etre of this great organization of $25,000,000 and 
200,000 people ? What end does it serve ? Why does the city 
sustain it ? To narrow the inquiry we may first question the 
directors of the institution before considering its implied func- 
tions as it stands related to other departments of municipal life. 

In the annual report for 1894-5 the president of the Board 
of Education wrote as follows: "Schools are established and 
maintained primarily that each ward of the commonwealth may 
become an integral and efficient member of the body politic, 
whereby he may contribute the best product of his thought and 
power to the enlightenment and prosperity of the state. The 
obligation of the state to the child lies in the reciprocal obliga- 
tion of the individual to the state. What the state does for the 
individual in his education finds its compensation in what the 

individual does for the state in its preservation The 

man is born with certain inalienable rights, with certain natural 
physical, mental, and moral powers, which in the child he may 
demand that the state shall foster, for the higher his endowment 
the greater his development, and the richer his equipment the 
safer is the state." 

This presentation of the object of the public schools and jus- 
tification of their existence is irreproachable, if we may use 
our own interpretation of some of the terms ; but when it is 
found again and again in but slightly changed phrases in the 
reports for sixty years, the suspicion is aroused that the idea is 

108 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO J 09 

conventionally accepted, with little thought of its real content. 
It comes to sound like a meaningless echo. Is not the child 
who is spoken of a mere abstraction in the writer's mind, a type, 
rather than one of a crowd of Italians, or Bohemians, or Rus- 
sians, or Germans, to say nothing of the unsocialized Americans, 
with whom the real problem is concerned ? Just what is it that 
the city must do to fit these incongruous elements for an intelli- 
gent life in American society ? A double task is involved : to 
train children whose home environment is too often one of pov- 
erty and ignorance, if not of vice, to be honest and industrious 
and intelligent, and to adapt aliens to become active citizens of 
a country whose institutions, ideals, and customs are in many 
cases radically different from those whose traditions they learn 
from their fathers. The children of American-born parents do 
not present so many peculiar problems, but they form by no 
means the whole number of pupils. Chicago's great foreign 
population is to be most easily assimilated through the children ; 
the burden rests upon the schools. Are they realizing their 
responsibility ? 

One may search the records in vain to find any explicit ref- 
erence to these conditions ; any recognition of the need for 
special adaptation of the system to the foreign clientage. Two 
potent means of effecting the desired fusion of divergent people 
have, however, always been employed. English is the language of 
the schools and United States history now has some place, how- 
ever small, in the program of every grade. No question as to the 
expediency of using English has ever arisen in Chicago. The 
policy of teaching German in some of the grades may have pre- 
vented any feeling of opposition on the part of a large body of 
foreigners. Whether consciously designed for that end or not, 
the instruction in a common language fashions for the children 
the strongest of bonds with the society in which they live. 
Through it they become the inheritors of national beliefs and 
sentiments that react upon them to form a common opinion and 
a common feeling. In a more positive way the study of the 
history of the country — familiarity with its great men, its 



I 10 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHLCAGO 

epoch-making events, knowledge of the principles on which the 
national life is based — is calculated to form common standards 
and sentiments. There is a conscious effort made to cultivate 
patriotism by the celebration of historic anniversaries, by asso- 
ciating the national flag with schoolhouses, by recounting sto- 
ries of heroism. In a vague way, too, the desirability of 
acquainting the pupils with the principles of local as well as 
national government is admitted, but the effectiveness of the 
methods used is doubtful. 

Aside from the employment of these basic means of assimi- 
lating unlike elements of the population, there is no special 
adaptation of the work of the schools to foreigners. There is 
but one course and one standard of promotion for all scholars, 
though the teacher may recognize individual needs to a slight 
degree. 

And what does the child receive from this uniform course ? 
To what extent is its nature, physical, mental and moral, devel- 
oped by school life ? Let us look first at the 25 or 30 per cent, 
who leave school at the end of the third grade. They have 
been taught something of the relations of numbers within the 
limits of 144, including the fundamental processes, addition, sub- 
traction, multiplication, division ; also the common measures, 
the different denominations of United States money, and the 
simple reduction of compound numbers. They can usually 
read, with some hesitation, easy text-books, spell common 
words and write a fair hand. They have had three years of 
well-planned nature study on the phenomena of the different 
seasons ; they have written simple compositions ; they have had 
instruction in simple songs and musical intervals, and have 
learned in drawing the principal geometric forms, with some 
free expression of ideas through color and paper-cutting. At 
the discretion of the teacher they have also been told stories 
from history and literature, and have committed to memory 
selections of poetry. 

As reading receives most of the attention throughout these 
grades, an average of three-quarters of an hour a day, it is 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO i 1 1 

important to consider the matter upon which their thought is 
centered during this time. The regular class books for this 
work are Appleton's First, Second, and Third Readers. The 
first contains but one selection that can be called literature, a 
folk story. For the rest mechanical combinations of sentences 
arranged to introduce words in narrative form seem to have 
been the desideratum. No information of any sort is given and 
no thoughts conveyed, unless it be a faint suggestion of kind- 
ness to animals. The second reader contains four fables, 
twenty-eight stories of children, pointless and without style, and 
thirty narrative sketches of birds, flowers, the wind, etc., with- 
out either literary or scientific merit. Single selections from 
some seven accredited authors are also given. The third 
reader has a similar table of contents, about the same number 
of good authors represented to the same extent, one storv from 
history, and the body of the book made up of hack work com- 
posed to teach words. Like the other two books it has no 
artistic form, and contains no information or ideas worth 
remembering. The best that can be said of the series is that 
print, paper, and illustrations are good. 

In addition to these prescribed books the course of study 
includes a list of supplementary readers, all of which are seldom 
found in any one school, though each school has some of them. 
Their use depends upon the taste of the teacher. First on the 
list stand Harper's First, Second, and Third Readers. The first 
reader is like the Appleton's, mere empty hack work ; the second 
and third are equally poor as literature, but they contain con- 
siderable information about life in foreign countries, animals, 
and industrial processes, such as mining and cotton raising. A 
few distinctly didactic tales are introduced, too crude in com- 
position to be effective. 

Boyden's Reader has excellent pictures with a primer-like text. 

Stickney's First Reader is poor; the second is fairly well 
written, and contains a few good fables. 

Barnes' National Second Reader is like the Appleton's. It 
contains one historical story. 



1 1 2 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

The Seaside and Wayside books attempt successfully to give 
pleasant science talks about animal life. The Normal Course in 
Reading also teaches facts of natural history as well as of 
botany and physiology, and in addition contains a number of 
good poems. 

Selections from /Esop's Fables are supplied to some of the 
second grades, and like the Riverside Book of Fables pre- 
sent delightful literature attractive to children. The Riverside 
Primer and Reader also merits the highest praise for its selec- 
tions, which include classics from Mother Goose, folk songs and 
stories, Poor Richard's proverbs, and a few passages from the 
Bible. The primer introduces a larger vocabulary than any of 
the other elementary books. Unfortunately both books of the 
series lack illustrations, and the print is too fine and the lines 
too crowded to be easy reading for beginners. 

The 9000 children who leave the schools in 1898, after 
passing through three grades, will have received through books 
no ideas of geography, or history, or the world of people in 
which they live, or any sense of the beautiful in literature, 
unless they have had truly wise teachers who selected the 
meager list of valuable poems and stories from the mediocre 
mass. From these teachers they may also have become 
acquainted with a few historic characters and some thought- 
provoking legends or folk stories, and have gained by the inci- 
dental suggestion and discipline of the schoolroom some ideas 
of their right relations to one another. But these things can 
neither be exactly formulated in a course, nor guaranteed in 
every class room until every teacher measures up to an ideal 
standard. Meantime it is difficult to understand why the 
course in reading may not be made a means of teaching some- 
thing more than the pronunciation of sentences far beneath the 
child's ability to appreciate. 

Forty-eight per cent, of all children who enter the primarv 
department leave at the end of the sixth grade at the average 
age of twelve. They have studied fractions, simple interest, and 
the general properties of geometric figures. Geography has 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO i i 3 

been studied for one year through supplementary readers and 
maps, and for two years with a text-book and map drawing. 
They have been taught one-third of a text-book on physiology, 
and the history of the United States through the War of Inde- 
pendence, by the aid of supplementary readers and maps. 
They have also had lessons on the county and city government, 
using a text-book. Reading, composition, language work, sing- 
ing, and drawing, have continued throughout the three years. 
For two years they may have studied German. 

Those whose school life closes at this point have usually 
gained a creditable command of the three essential tools,— 
reading, writing, and arithmetic. They have at least a general 
conception of the earth and its physical and political divisions, 
with considerable knowledge of its different peoples. Of their 
own immediate surroundings, geographical and political, they 
have read some facts, but the method of presenting these 
depends so entirely upon the teacher's breadth of view that 
nothing can be asserted about the result of the study. The 
text-book employed, Crawford's, is a fair reference book, some- 
what lacking in clearness in its treatment of the relations 
between Chicago and Cook County, but on the whole a useful 
catalogue of facts. In the hands of a teacher not trained to 
employ inductive methods in the study of social phenomena, it 
must be to the pupils only a collection of disjecta membra, a test 
for memory as foreign to daily life as a list of Asiatic seas or 
the series of English kings. 

The readers for the three grades are a marked improvement 
upon those for the lower grades in that they contain more genu- 
ine literature. Appleton's Fifth Reader is especially noteworthy, 
with its orations and selections from a wide range of good 
authors. It may perhaps be open to criticism for the tone of 
solemnity, even sadness, which characterizes it, but it at least 
contains noble thoughts in fine forms. The supplementary 
readers include a geographical series ; stories from American 
history, chiefly biographical ; Fisk's War of Independence, and 
several of the Riverside series, including Hawthorne's True 



114 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

Stories from American History, Little Daffydowndilly and 
Tanglewood Tales, some of Hans Andersen's Stories, and selec- 
tions from Longfellow's shorter poems. 

With the work of the seventh and eighth grades the school 
life of all but 4 per cent, of the pupils ends. The two upper 
grades aim to complete the work in arithmetic, with the addi- 
tion of the first principles of algebra. The study of a text-book 
carries the history of the United States down to the present 
time. English history is also taken up for six months of the 
last year. The text-book in physiology is completed, as well 
as one in grammar. The government of the state and nation is 
studied in connection with history. The readings for these years 
are entirely in American history and literature. For the former 
work Steele's, Scudder's, Montgomery's, and Eggleston's school 
histories are provided. They cover so nearly the same ground 
that one adds little to another's presentation, except as one is 
more detailed, or more biographical or anecdotal than another. 
The text-book in civil government is the same one used in the 
fifth grade. It is supplemented in some schools by Dole's 
American Citizen, which contains admirable sociological mate- 
rial, a study in social ethics as well as political phenomena, but 
errs in diffuseness and a somewhat incoherent arrangement. 
Skillfully used, however, it may be very valuable. 

The most extraordinary choice of a text-book is that made 
for the work in English history — Green's Shorter History of the 
English People- — a most admirable book for college students, 
but absurdly unsuited to the needs and capacity of children only 
thirteen or fourteen years old. The contrast between the text- 
books in the two departments of history studied, United States 
and English, is not unlike that between the primer and the fifth 
reader, a gap not to be leaped in a week's vacation. 

Criticism of the work of the primary and grammar grades, 
rom the sociological point of view, does not attach itself to the 
outline of the course of studv. The object of attack, as has 
been shown, is the text-books, particularly the readers of the 
first three grades, the civil government and English history. 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 1 1 5 

The criticism is twofold : the pupils are not introduced to the 
treasures of literature, the best thought of the world expressed 
in art form, and they gain little or no insight into the workings 
of the society in which they live, the dependence of every man 
upon every other man, the relations of groups of men to each 
other. They do not learn how Chicago is fed and clothed and 
taught, and not clearly how it is governed. In the probably 
rare instances where the teacher has learned to look upon 
society as a living whole, and appreciates the nature of the 
child and the manifold duties his citizenship will entail upon 
him, there will be a different spirit in the class room, the barren 
text-books will become instinct with life, but remembering the 
preparation which the majority of teachers have had, there is 
not much ground for hope that this is often true. 

For moral culture reliance is placed upon the discipline of 
the school, and here again the character of the teacher is the 
determining factor. In too many instances there is a lack of 
oversight of pupils during recesses that is responsible for much 
evil, and this not always in schools whose scholars come from 
unpromising homes. The experience of vacation schools and 
kindergartens where the teachers direct and share in the games 
of the playground might be taken as an example for other 
schools. In spite of Froebel, educators have not yet learned the 
moral significance of recreation in a child's life. 

Ten minutes a day are given to the cultivation of the bodies 
of Chicago children. Free-hand gymnastics, wand exercises, 
and a limited use of dumb bells and Indian clubs are the means 
employed, but what physical development can be gained in such 
fragments of time ? Five hours a day in a seat unfitted to the 
body is sufficient to undo the little that is accomplished by the 
exercise. The child must be placed under perfect hygienic con- 
ditions before any system of physical culture can be effective. 
Perhaps the most valuable gift that could be made to the 
schools would be open-air gymnasiums or plavgrounds where 
exercise could be taken in fresh air and sunlight. 

Of the work of the high schools little need be said beyond 



1 1 6 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO 

calling attention to the emphasis placed upon English literature 
both in the general and the college preparatory courses. Civics 
and political economy have a place in the general course and 
that of the Manual Training School. The text-book used for 
the former is Young's Government Class Book, which has little 
to recommend it. Its English is often faulty and its arrange- 
ment illogical and confusing. Principles do not stand out 
clearly from the mass of exceptions. At best it is but an inven- 
tory of facts and most of the progressive teachers use it only as 
a point of departure. 

In political economy Laughlin's Elements of Political Econ- 
omy is the prescribed book. This is a clear, simple, and attrac- 
tive presentation of the principles of orthodox political economy, 
treated deductively. In the discussion of certain topics of prac- 
tical interest, the author exposes himself to criticism by letting 
his personal bias appear so strongly as to color the argument a 
little too much for perfect fairness. 

Gymnastics in the high schools are even less satisfactory 
than in the lower grades, since the exercise is less frequent. A 
few of the schools have gymnasiums and in these, the supervisor 
says, "one hour weekly is spent in physical exercises and volun- 
tary classes of boys and girls practice heavy gymnastics twice 
weekly after school." 

In two directions there is logical promise of extension in the 
scope of the schools, through the kindergartens and the study of 
manual training in the grammar and high schools. The impor- 
tance of each of these is very great. The first have a peculiar 
value among the foreign population and the poor, the latter is 
helping to solve the problem of how to lengthen the school life 
of boys, while both form essential parts of that ideal education 
which develops and informs the whole nature of the child. 



CONCLUSION. 

Excepting for the management of business, the mechanism 
of the Chicago public schools is well developed. The dangerous 
tendency, indeed, is that the whole system will be looked upon 
as a great machine intended to take ignorant children in at one 
end and, passing them along by means of one wheel and 
another, turn them out at the other end educated young 
citizens. In other words there is danger that the school life will 
be regarded as apart from the life of the world around, the world 
which the pupil will sometime enter but which he now views 
from afar. The watchwords for reform are, a better board, 
better teachers and better text-books! A board wholly out of 
politics, whose members shall be trained for their duties ; teach- 
ers of wide culture and noble character ; books that shall con- 
tain, not mere forms, but life. 

The public schools form a most important part of the great 
communicating system to which pulpit and press also belong 
On the schools devolves the task not only of distributing infor- 
mation but of developing character as well. Upon them also 
rests the duty of securing for the children physical training. 

As a possible dynamic force in the city's life the school can- 
not be over estimated. It is democratic in form, unbiased in its 
teachings, and it reaches persons of an age to be most easily 
influenced, when they are most open minded and without expe- 
rience. Under the direction of those who saw clearly the lines 
of true progress for the city, the school system could be made 
the strongest of all agencies for accomplishing the desired end. 
As it is, the general public is unconscious of its activities and 
their direction, and its leaders regard it only under its con- 
ventional aspect, as an institution to furnish children with the 
necessary knowledge for an average life. 

117 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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